Quality Assurance Overview
Raise Quality Assurance Form
Overview
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You should only raise a form if you have a particular quality concern that is affecting an individual in receipt of adult social care.
You should have initially attempted to raise the concern with the intended recipient.
Should you be unable to resolve the concern, or you have resolved the issue but want to share what happened with us, then a form can used.
You can also raise a form if you would like to compliment someone.
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Anybody who wishes to raise a compliment or quality concern can complete the form, this includes members of the public, health and social care professionals or care providers.
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The form can be used to notify us of compliments or quality concerns with adult social care providers or health and social care services that play a role within adult social care.
This form cannot be used to notify us of issues with health services such as hospitals.
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No, the Quality Assurance Form should not be used to raise a Safeguarding concern. Should you believe someone is being abused or is at risk of abuse or neglect you will need to report it directly to the Safeguarding team on 0345 604 2719.
If you have raised a safeguarding referral regarding a concern, you should not raise a Quality Assurance Form, as it is a duplication of process.
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No, the Quality Assurance Form should not be used to raise a formal complaint. Should you wish to raise a formal complaint you will need to contact the service in the first instance and then the Staffordshire County Council Complaints Team should you be unsatisfied by the service’s investigation.
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Yes, even though you have resolved the matter the intelligence helps us to identify trends and themes. There could also be a case of the matter being resolved in your situation, but a similar issue could be raised by others after the event.
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It is best to put in as much detail as possible while keeping the information clear and easy to understand, quoting dates, times and names if possible. Generalised concerns and missing information can make it difficult for a service to investigate and may result in us being unable to progress the form.
The Process
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- We escalate this with the relevant contract team, where a contract is held with a service.
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Should you notify us that the response from the service contains factual inaccuracies we will request additional details from the service. The Quality Assurance Form doesn’t however have an appeals process and the Quality Assurance Team will not act as an arbitrator in the case of a dispute.
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- Upon receipt of a response from a service, an Officer within the Quality Assurance Team will review the response to ensure it is sufficiently detailed and provides an appropriate response to the concerns that were raised.
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We request that the service investigates the concerns, detailing if they believe the concerns have been substantiated, their reasoning and then any subsequent action that they have taken.
There is an expectation that we receive this response within 10 working days.
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The Quality Assurance Team will first review it to ensure it meets the criteria for the process. If you have shared the form with us for information purposes only, the form will not be raised with the service. If you have requested that we contact a service, the form will be sent to the service where the quality concern occurred for investigation.
Should you raise a compliment about a service we will ensure the information is recorded and that the service receives a copy of the compliment.