Adult Social Care Insights, Governance & Quality Improvement

A service can improve quickly when everyone is watching. The harder test is whether those changes last once the extra scrutiny, support and pressure begin to step back. This is a reflection on what sustainable improvement really looks like and a lesson I learned the hard way.

Episode 2 of Beyond the Audit explores how poor practice can gradually become normalised through shortcuts, workarounds and small compromises and why good governance means understanding what actually happens when things get busy.

Moving to digital care records can improve care planning, oversight and access to information, but technology won’t fix poor records or weak governance. Using real CQC findings, I look at what can go right, what can go wrong and what providers should check before and after go-live.

This week’s Adult Social Care Briefing covers the Health Bill’s move to the House of Lords, recent CQC inspection findings and the Government’s new AI Risk Management Toolkit, with practical actions for managers and senior leaders across older people’s services.

How does poor practice become “just how we do things here”? A look at how everyday pressures, shortcuts and workplace culture can gradually shape care, and why good governance needs to spot the patterns before they become the norm.

This week’s Adult Social Care Briefing covers the new UKHSA infection resource for adult social care, the next stage of the Fair Pay Agreement and the latest developments around hospital discharge. Practical actions and considerations for care home leaders.

This week’s Adult Social Care Briefing looks at NICE’s new consultation on aggressive behaviour in people receiving NHS or social care, alongside CQC’s latest local authority assessments. Key themes include restrictive practice, risk management, safe transitions, system pressures and what these developments mean in practice for care-home leaders.

This week's Adult Social Care Briefing explores what the Workforce Strategy means for providers, alongside current CQC assessment priorities and the leadership actions organisations should be considering.

Do your audits provide assurance, or simply reassurance? In the first episode of Beyond the Audit, Cheryl Baird explores the difference between governance and assurance, why completed audits don't always mean improved care, and the questions every leader should be asking to understand what's really happening within their organisation

This week's Adult Social Care Briefing explores the Government's Fair Pay Agreement proposals, the expanded Care Workforce Pathway and the appointment of CQC's new Chief Executive, with practical insights for providers.

This week's Adult Social Care Briefing reviews the latest CQC and ADASS publications, explaining what has changed, why it matters and the practical implications for adult social care providers.

Most medication error investigations identify what happened. Fewer explain why it happened. This article explores how learning, culture, human factors and governance can reveal far more than the error itself.

A personal reflection on trust, culture and why the conversations that matter most often begin after the meeting has ended

Different providers. Different services. Different inspectors. Yet the same themes continue to appear. Why do medicines, care planning, oversight and record keeping remain recurring findings in Requires Improvement reports?

When something goes wrong, nobody asks to see the training matrix. They ask whether the person had the knowledge, skills and competence to provide safe care

As AI adoption accelerates across health and social care, organisations must balance innovation with governance, quality and accountability. A practical perspective on implementing technology that delivers meaningful impact.

Good governance is more than audits and action plans. This article explores how culture, leadership, accountability and organisational oversight influence quality and compliance in health and social care services