General Information

Clinical Governance at Castlebeck

Doing it Right - getting better at what we do by always trying to improve the experience of people who we support

Keeping it Safe - getting better at learning lessons if things go wrong, and spotting potential problems early on

Within Castlebeck, Clinical Governance has been carefully developed as a vibrant, active and genuinely useful framework.

It helps our services celebrate their many successes, spot problems or challenges pro-actively, learn how to make things better and strive to improve quality.

It provides an internal double-check and opportunity for reflection.

It serves as a "clinical conscience" for the Company.

Castlebeck exists to always to try to improve the experience of the people we support, and to support our staff in achieving this. Castlebeck has approached Clinical Governance with care to avoid potential pitfalls, such as it being used as a paper exercise, or being experienced by staff and residents as something complicated or practised only by a team of distant people who are primarily administrators.

There has been radical thinking employed to genuinely try to make Clinical Governance an inherent part of what our staff and services do on a daily basis. It has sought to ensure that everyone is involved; from the people we support, to support workers, managers and executives.

The result of this has been

  • The creation of a Clinical Governance Framework to connect all the people, systems and places involved in ways that work
  • The development of Clinical Governance Local Action Plans, underpinned by our "Measure, Improve, Extend" philosophy for ongoing quality audit in every service
  • The development of our User Involvement Programme utilising new strategies such as innovative forums and alternative communications techniques.

For more information about our Clinical Governance framework, please contact Dr Bunny Forsyth, Director of Governance on 01325 252001.

Protection of Vulnerable Adults (POVA)

Castlebeck is committed to protecting all our residents, at all times. All our residents are potentially vulnerable due to presence of learning disabilities, challenging behaviours and other complex needs. A number of processes are in place to support their protection.

Quality Process

Castlebeck has established, documented, implemented and maintains a Quality Management System that meets the requirements of ISO9001:2000. The main processes that we utilize are as follows:

Management Responsibility focused via Company policy and objectives, leadership and commitment, communication, management review, availability of resources, customer focus and the quality system.

Provision and Management of Resources focused via people, infrastructure and working environments.

Service Realisation focused via Resident/Service User/Patient assessment and care planning and contracts, admission, provision of residency and/or care, associated services and activities.

Measurement, analysis and improvement is focused via customer satisfaction, internal audit, care plan review, non-conformances, analysis of data, corrective actions and improvements and sharing best practice.

Safety

Castlebeck has a dedicated Health and Safety Manager as required by the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (HSE,1999). The company implements the management of health and safety using the HSE guidance document 'Successful Health and Safety Management' (HSG 65). This system allows for the formulation and development of health and safety policies, to promote a health and safety culture, and to plan objectives, monitor health and safety and provide a safe place of work.

The Health & Safety Manager is in a position to provide authoritative and independent advice on the implications of health and safety issues for the line managers within the Group, send information to the directors on matters of policy, and is the central point for reporting, investigating, recording and analysing accidents and incidents.