Face-to-face training earns its cost when the skill is a performance rather than a body of knowledge. Dementia care, distressed behaviour and de-escalation sit in that group, and NICE recommends face-to-face training and mentoring for staff supporting people living with dementia. For factual and procedural content, eLearning is usually the better spend. Most services do not have a training budget problem. They have an allocation problem. The trainer’s day rate is the small number; the real...

An honest guide to the rating process review Every provider rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate asks the same question in the first week. Can we fight this? The honest answer is: sometimes, but far less often than people hope, and only on one specific ground. This article sets out exactly when the answer is yes, so you can stop wondering and put your energy where it will actually change your rating. Start here: which situation are you in? Read these three before anything else. Only one...

Expanded sample report: 26 coded inspection and assessment reports, plus an 8-case deterioration cohort Adult social care, England, 2023 to July 2026 Executive summary This report expands the earlier 11-case pilot to 26 adult social care services holding an overall CQC rating of Requires Improvement, and adds a separate cohort of 8 services that fell from Requires Improvement to Inadequate. All figures carry a denominator of 26 or fewer and remain indicative rather than sector estimates. The...