Skills for Care have now announced the launch of the new ‘Care Certificate’ to help Health Care sector staff in their standards of care. The launch is focused on a number of pre-set standards of care and will be used for new starters and existing staff as refresher training.
The new changes come into effect in the wake of the failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust which highlighted inconsistencies in training. The Care Certificate was a recommendation from the Cavendish review, which suggested how to improve the quality of care provided by health and care support workers.
Care minister Norman Lamb said it was “essential that we drive up standards”, adding: “There’s lots of great care out there but there are too many cases of care falling down.”
The new certificate was officially launched in March 2015 for employers to start using the Care Certificate as of April 2015 and will be awarded to healthcare assistants and care support workers to demonstrate they have completed basic training to enable them to work unsupervised.
The Care Certificate sets out explicitly the learning outcomes, competences and standards of care that will be expected in both sectors, ensuring that the HCSW/ASCW is caring, compassionate and provides quality care. The Care Certificate standards are listed below.
The Care Certificate standards:
- Understand Your Role
- Your Personal Development
- Duty of Care
- Equality and Diversity
- Work in a Person Centred Way
- Communication
- Privacy and Dignity
- Fluids and Nutrition
- Awareness of mental health, dementia and learning disabilities
- Safeguarding Adults
- Safeguarding Children
- Basic Life Support
- Health and Safety
- Handling Information
- Infection Prevention and Control
Materials to support employers in preparing for the Certificate, including revised standards and guidance are now available for use and can be found here
When the Care Certificate is introduced it will be replacing both the Common Induction Standards and the National Minimum Training Standards.