The incoming CQC inspections are a key priority for ASC teams across the country right now. Our June webinar focused specifically on how we are co-designing and deploying automated telephony to regularly keep in touch with people who draw on care services, enabling councils to bring their experience and feedback into service planning and provision.

Interestingly in a podcast with the CQC, the two ‘Test & Learn’ authorities (Hampshire County Council & Manchester City Council), cited that “one of the main challenges for all of us is how we better get the views of people who use services and how we can do that better”.

Many councils we have spoken to use letters, satisfaction surveys and carer led forms to gather feedback. And all recognise challenges with these approaches, including the cost, overhead of collating results, independence of feedback, complexity of aligning results, and the time taken to generate accurate and/or actionable insight from the various methodologies.

The new assessment framework places emphasis on service user engagement and people’s experience of health & care services, requiring councils and ICSs to:

• Actively seek feedback from service users, families & advocates
• Undertake & evidence regular & ongoing engagement
• Be able to make sense of feedback
• Bring feedback into wider ASC strategy and planning
• Address issues of equality (communication needs, language, diversity etc)
• Bring feedback and experience into processes, policies & procedures
• Show innovation

Over 40 people from 25 local authorities registered for our webinar (if you missed it please drop us a line as we can share a recording.) On it we ran through the council co-designed questions, the scheduling and frequency of the calls, we played a demo call and discussed how the data is collated, as well as the ability to capture ‘free voice’.

The key is that by using the Contact&Connect platform we can contact over 98% of service users, either via their mobile phone or landline. People do not need to own a computer, have internet access or digital skills, and we are able to deploy the calls in different languages if there is a case for it. Results from our other services show that we are able to increase engagement rates across the board, including with underrepresented groups, we are also able to contact people who don’t have English as their first language, people who have hearing impairments (by SMS), or those who are not digital natives.

Whilst all scripts are completely configurable, the current CQC script is based on the TLAP “I statements”. It covers key areas including being ‘supported & heard’, ‘safe & able’, ensuring people feel part of the process, have enough social contact as well as access to good quality information & advice. The system is able to automatically send relevant links to service users who need further support or information, and identify those who have issues or would benefit from a human follow up call.

With dashboards collecting feedback in real time, councils are able to collate and compare it as frequently as they want. Our quarterly Contact&Connect Insight Reports also generate clear visual documentation as to people’s experiences, which – if relevant – can be cut and sliced according to location, age, gender or other relevant factors.

The first Contact&Connect: CQC service goes live on August 1st, 2023 meaning that several months worth of service user feedback will already be captured, and available to CQC inspectors from the off. The sheer volume of service users in any ASC system, means that making direct contact with everyone is a task no team can undertake. Our automated approach enables contact with everyone, on a regular, ongoing basis; engaging with people at scale in a way not previously attempted; bringing the service user’s voice and experience back into the heart of care services to ensure they meet people’s needs, and care can be as personal and relevant as possible.

If you would like to discuss Contact&Connect: CQC further, please get in touch.