Voluntary sector involvement in CQC Dementia Review

The Care Quality Commission is undertaking a themed inspection programme looking at the quality of dementia care.

During the inspection programme, they are looking at:

• The quality of support provided to people with dementia to enable them to maintain their physical and mental health and wellbeing;
• How the care provided aims to reduce admissions to hospitals from care homes and avoid unnecessary lengths of stay in hospital; and
• How services work together when people move from one service to another.

They will inspect care homes and acute hospitals in 22 local authority areas across the country between late November 2013 and February 2014. They will then publish a report for each service that they inspect and a national report that highlights key themes, what works well and what needs to improve.

People’s experiences of care and the quality of their pathway of care will be at the centre of the review and the inspections. It is very important for them to hear from as many people with dementia and their families and carers as we can during the programme.

They would like to hear about the experiences of people with dementia, particularly when they are moving between hospitals and care homes for both emergency and non-emergency admissions. They would welcome individual stories, reports of enter and view visits, surveys or other comments received.

Email information to dementiafeedback@cqc.org.uk, telephone 03000 616161 or complete the online form at www.cqc.org.uk/public/publications/themed-inspections/themed-review-dementia-care.

CQC are keen to know if they can attend any events or meetings where people with dementia and their families are coming together between December and February. They hope this might be a way we can better connect with people in familiar settings and to avoid cutting across work you are already doing.

The deadline for comments to feed into this review is the end of February 2014. But they would welcome any feedback during November and December in particular as it will help inform their inspections. After February they will pass any feedback to the particular inspection teams for the services concerned to take into account in any future inspections.

If you have questions regarding the review email involvement.edhr@cqc.org.uk.