 Two people looking at a laptop screen - one person is pointing at something on the screen. Coroners share copies of Regulation 28 reports with CQC when concerns about care or treatment provided by a registered provider have been identified. Recently, there have been two reports sent through to us with a similar theme. The reports relate to patients who took their own lives and had recently started using medication for anxiety/depression. The coroner raised a concern that the patients in question hadnt been informed that sometimes, people can feel worse and their symptoms could be exacerbated before an anticipated improvement. There was also an observation that there was a lack of evidence about informing patients of a potential relapse if medicines were stopped. Carrying out and sharing significant learning events is important, and it is appropriate for primary care providers to use LFPSE (Learn from Patient Safety Events) to record these events to support wider learning. Providers in secondary care that provide services under the NHS Standard Contract are currently transitioning from the Serious Incident Framework to the Patient Safety Incident Response Framework (PSIRF). This sets out the NHSs approach to developing and maintaining effective systems and processes for responding to patient safety incident for the purpose of learning and improving patient safety. Although it is not currently a requirement of primary care providers, they may wish to adopt PSIRF, and CQC would support primary care providers who wish to do so.  A cartoon of people, all with speech bubbles above their heads At the end of February we will be updating the form that health and social care providers should use to notify us of the outcome of an application to deprive a person of their liberty. Providers must notify CQC as soon as they know the outcome of an application, this includes Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) applications and applications made to the Court of Protection. The updated form will incorporate an additional field prompting providers to specify the date on which the outcome of the application was received or the date of its withdrawal. Please ensure that if you have locally stored copies of the notification form you update these. The notification form will also be updated in our new CQC portal. We will confirm in our next provider update that this change has taken place.  Last years survey and interviews on medicines sustainability showed that 93% of respondents agreed it was important to work towards reducing the environmental impact of their services. However, over half of respondents (55%) told us they had faced challenges or barriers to improving medicines sustainability in their organisation. To build on this learning, were planning a series of online focus groups to better understand how medicines sustainability can be improved in individual providers and systems. If you work in health and social care or the wider healthcare industry, we are interested in hearing about your work in this area and how we can drive innovation. We plan to cover: - What does good medicines sustainability look like in your service?
- How are technology and digital systems being used in health and social care to drive medicines sustainability?
- Pilot to adoption: Making medicines sustainability business-as-usual
- Opportunities for medicines sustainability in the patient journey
If you'd like to take part in the focus groups, please complete and submit this form.  Four red hands raised, with the words 'Your say' floating above them. How well do you understand how CQC is changing? We're introducing a new regulatory model based on a single assessment framework, which we have started to use across the country. Alongside this work we're also starting to roll out our new provider portal. In 2023, we launched a communication campaign to ensure all health & social care providers understood these changes, what it means for them and how they can prepare. To help measure the success of this campaign, we'd like to know how well you understand these changes in 2024. Share your feedback through this short survey. GP innovation to reduce health inequalities We invite general practice providers to take part in a short survey, which should take about 5 minutes, on our Using and sharing innovation to reduce health inequalities guidance. We use the term innovation to include invention (creating new ideas, products, services or models of care), and adoption (using what has worked elsewhere and helping share good practice).  Logo of the Department of Health and Social Care The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has removed the statutory requirement for a full employment history with respect to volunteers in health and care settings.It means that employers are no longer required to request this information from volunteer applicants if deemed unnecessary. This amendment to legislation came into effect on 15 January, following a consultation last year.It aims to help streamline volunteer recruitment processes, remove barriers for applicants, and reduce administrative burden for service providers. More information can be found on the NHS Employers website. The consultation response and details of the legislation amendment can be found on the DHSC website. We will publish updated guidance in due course and will share details through this bulletin once that has been done.  A smiling older man in a wheelchair, welcomes a younger female visitor Last summer the government ran a consultation to seek views on its plans to introduce secondary legislation to ensure that visiting is protected and prioritised in care homes, hospices and hospitals registered by CQC. In December 2023, the government published an amendment to the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2023 to add a regulation on visiting and accompanying. We've drafted proposed guidance to help providers and other stakeholders understand the new standard on visiting and their roles and responsibilities under it. It also sets out what people using relevant health and social care services and their families, friends or advocates can expect. We are now consulting on this guidance. This consultation is limited to our guidance about the new fundamental standard. It does not cover the scope and content of the visiting legislation itself, which was subject to DHSCs own, separate consultation. - In December, we published our updated guidance for local authorities ahead of starting our local authority assessments. Our latest update on the implementation can be read here.
- The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has removed the statutory requirement for a full employment history with respect to volunteers in health and care settings. More information can be found on the NHS Employers website. We will update our guidance in due course. In the meantime, the consultation response and details of the legislation amendment can be found on the DHSC website.
- In a new blog Stefan Kallee, interim Deputy Director for People with a learning disability and autistic people, shares the latest on the work of the Supported Living Improvement Coalition and its network groups.
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