With more than a million copies in circulation, they could make it on to a best-sellers list. But what does social care really think of the General Social Care Council’s codes of practice? That’s the question being asked of 47,000 social care workers and employers across England today (24 March 04).
Launching the social care workforce regulator’s biggest ever survey, Chief Executive Lynne Berry said the findings were crucial to finding out whether the codes were achieving their aim of raising standards in social care.
“We believe that having national, universal standards of conduct and practice is essential to raising quality and building trust in social care,” Ms Berry said.
“But we know that making them available is not enough in itself and we want to know whether the 1.25 million copies we’ve sent out are reaching staff, whether they are being read, and whether people are adapting both their working and their management practices to take account of the codes.”
Hertfordshire County Council’s adult care service is an excellent example of an organisation that is leading the way on implementing the codes. The service has built them into its practice development programme, induction and quality improvement processes, sent them to all staff, held workshops for staff on the codes, and is including the codes into contract renewals for external services such as transport and other policy reviews.
Consulting on and publishing the codes was an early task for the GSCC under the Care Standards Act 2000, working with its sister organisations in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The two codes – one for social care workers and one for employers of social care workers – are the first national codes of practice for the social care sector and set out the standards of good conduct and practice that all social care workers and employers should meet.
All social care workers and employers should be abiding by the codes. The National Care Standards Commission, the Social Services Inspectorate and its successor, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, take the codes into account in their enforcement of care standards. Abiding by the codes is a condition of registration with the General Social Care Council, and all qualified social workers must be registered by April 2005.
Ms Berry said: “The codes are the lynchpin of our mission to raise standards for the benefit of social care service users. Finding out how well they are being used will help us discover what we and employers can do to make sure they are part of the lifeblood of the social care workplace.”
And she urged: “If you receive a copy of the questionnaire, please fill it in and return it to us free post before 14 May 2004. It only takes a few minutes and you will be playing an important part in raising standards in social care.”
Copies of the questionnaire can be downloaded from the GSCC’s website at www.gscc.org.uk.