Title of driver: The state of health and adult social care in England 2015/16

Impact on library policy/practice:

Libraries are a knowledge hub providing services such as evidence summaries, literature searching and current awareness which can be linked to challenges faced by the specific organisation (CQC inspection reports for individual organisations can be searched for on the CQC website and can be a good way to identify local priority areas).

We can ensure that the best clinical and management knowledge is available to decision-makers in the organisation, in order to tackle the challenges identified in this report. Libraries are ideally placed to identify and disseminate best practice to assist health care organisations in providing quality care with limited resources.

Collaboration across organisational boundaries is identified as a means to improve services, and this may have implications for libraries as users move between organisations or work jointly between organisations that may have different resources or library access arrangements.

Source: Care Quality Commission (CQC)

Link to main page
Link to 2015/2016 State of Care Report

Publication format: PDF (149 pages)

Date of publication: October 2016

Summary of driver:

Many health and care services were providing good quality care, despite a challenging environment,
but there was substantial variation remaining. Some health and care services were improving, but some were also failing to improve or deteriorating in quality.

People’s views of services broadly remain positive, but this masked significant variation in experiences of care

There were indications that the sustainability of adult social care was approaching a tipping point, and hospitals are under increasing pressure. The CQC was concerned about the sustainability of quality

Key features of driver:

• 71% of the adult social care services inspected, 83% of GP practices, and 51% of core services provided by hospitals were rated good
• By the end of 2015/16, NHS providers had overspent their budgets by £2.45 billion. Local authorities were reported to have spent £168 million more than they budgeted for
• More than eight out of 10 NHS acute trusts were in financial deficit at the end of 2015/16
• Strong, visible leadership continues to be a major factor in delivering and sustaining high quality services, and in making improvements
• The difficulties in adult social care were already affecting hospitals. Bed occupancy rates exceeded 91% in January to March 2016, the highest quarterly rate for at least six years. And in 2015/16, there was an increase in the number of people having to wait to be discharged from hospital, in part due to a lack of suitable care options
• All parts of local health and care systems – commissioners, providers, regulators and local people – need to work together to help transform local areas.

The document looks at the state of care in the period 2015-16, as well as looking at the future resilience of health and social care services in the context of an ageing population.

Throughout the document, there are examples from services rated as outstanding as to how these ratings were achieved.

After the initial review, the report gives more details for each of sectors it regulates.

A summary and infographic of the report findings are also available.

Primary audience: All health and social care providers in England, members of the public and other stakeholders.

Date last updated: May 2017
Due for review: May 2018
Group member responsible: JC

Tagged: Care Quality Commission, Health and Social Care, Patient safety, Quality of care