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In July 2020 CQC and Healthwatch launched a year-long initiative calling on people to provide feedback on health and social care services. The campaign, headlined “Because we all care”, was designed to help identify service issues and improve services for everyone. By providing feedback, patients, carers and their loved ones are able to share their personal experiences of the care they have received or seen first hand and work with both CQC and Healthwatch to identify and improve quality issues where required.
The initiative has sought to encourage people in certain key groups to come forward with their feedback, particularly from those groups where limited feedback has been provided in the past. During the latter part of the last year, the campaign was centred on people with long-term or invisible health conditions and older people more generally. Earlier this year, the project has seen an increased focus on carers, in particular those carers who are unpaid.
Focus on feedback from people with a learning disability or autism
In the month of March 2021 the drive has been to obtain feedback from people with a learning disability or autism. Recent CQC research has shown that people in these groups are less likely to give negative feedback in relation to the care they receive in case it increases pressures on staff or services. Consequently, CQC and Heathwatch are especially keen for people with learning disabilities or autism to give feedback on their care in order to highlight any issues with the services provided to them. The message of the initiative is that it is important that all people have a voice and are able to shape the future of their care.
People are able to give feedback on their experiences of care, or someone that they care for, online either on the CQC website or their local Healthwatch page. The process is quick and should take no longer than 5-10 minutes. The “because we all care” campaign has made clear that it is interested in all feedback, whether good or bad and even where the individual has experienced something in the past that they would like to share.
The campaign is particularly relevant at this time as, as a result of the coronavirus pandemic there has been a significantly increased focus on care service standards, with many services looking to “bounce back” frombCOVID-19. It is therefore increasingly important for individuals to come forward and provide their first hand experiences of the care they have received to ensure that poor service provision does not go undetected. Following feedback, CQC are looking to take action where necessary to make sure that poor services get better and protect people from care that is not safe. Care providers should be conscious of the campaign and increased likelihood that patients may be giving feedback on the services that they provide.
