The challenge
Sarah McPherson, Commissioning Support Officer at Torbay Local Authority, shares how the council engages adult social care (ASC) providers to ensure they achieve 100% compliance with the Health and Care Act 2022: Adult Social Care information provisions. Sarah has designed a simple workflow that is easy for one person to manage. She engages ASC providers by initiating regular contact that reminds them to update their data.
Each adult social care provider must update their data between 8th and 14th of each month (or next working day if the 14th falls on a weekend or bank holiday). Although Torbay Council frequently achieves high compliance rates, the Local Authority is committed to supporting their 77 care homes and 32 homecare providers to meet their obligations and help avoid any enforcement action.
Our response
Sarah created a way of working that supports providers to achieve compliance for the Department of Health and Social Care monthly reporting window.
Preparation ahead of the reporting window:
1. Review the monthly list of providers who have not met their obligations flagged by the regional lead.
2. Add important reminders to the Torbay Council Adult Social Care provider newsletters including submission window dates & training dates.
3. Run Update Summary report from Capacity Tracker to identify new providers (according to the latest Care Quality Commission (CQC) data feed) and to collect provider contact details.
4. Run Update Monthly Status ASC Collection report from Capacity Tracker to regularly check which locations have updated across different submission windows.
5. Link with the CQC where it is known that locations are/have closed or amended their registration which are still appearing in the CQC data feed and therefore remain on Capacity Tracker.
Providers have been encouraged to notify CQC of any changes at the earliest opportunity and that data submissions are maintained by completing a ‘nil return’, until the CQC information has been updated.
During Submission Window
1. Day 1 of submission window: Initial email sent to all providers – offering them support and guidance, whilst gently reminding the window is open.
2. Run update Monthly Status ASC Collection report from Capacity Tracker to regularly check who has updated within the current window.
3. Midway through the submission window: Forward the above to outstanding providers.
4. Final day of submission window: Final personalised emails (with DEADLINE TODAY and provider name in the subject) sent to outstanding providers.
5. Final day of submission window: Final phone calls made to outstanding providers (providers supply more information when speaking on the phone) and understand reasons why they have not been able to update.
Outcomes
Since the Adult Social Care Information (Enforcement) Regulations came into force in April 2023, Torbay Council have achieved 97%-100% compliance, showing excellent provider engagement on a consistent level, reducing the risk of adult social care providers receiving NOIs.
| Submission Window | CH Rate (%) | HC Rate (%) |
| Aug 22* | 96 | 81 |
| Sep 22* | 92 | 84 |
| Oct 22* | 96 | 81 |
| Nov 22* | 97 | 87 |
| Dec 22* | 100 | 90 |
| Jan 23* | 100 | 100 |
| Feb 23* | 100 | 100 |
| Mar 23* | 97 | 100 |
| Apr 23 | 100 | 100 |
| May 23 | 100 | 100 |
| Jun 23 | 100 | 100 |
| Jul 23 | 99 | 100 |
| Aug 23 | 99 | 97 |
The period of August 2022 – March 2023 was a support period engaging with providers.
*Agreed provider support period to help engage and embed the information provisions.