About Skillsbase

CQC and Skillsbase

The Care Quality Commission (formerly the Commission for Social Care Inspection) registers, inspects and reports on social care services in England. CQC’s role is to improve social care and stamp out bad practice.

In 2008, CQC's predecessor CSCI warmly welcomed Skillsbase and the support it offers to employers to take constructive action on these skills.

AQAA – Annual Quality Assurance Assessment

It is a legal requirement for all registered adult social care services to submit an annual quality assurance assessment (AQAA) to CQC. The completed assessment will help CQC understand how well providers are meeting the needs of the people using their service.

A significant element of the AQAA form is based on the outcome areas of the National Minimum Standards for adult services and asks social care providers to tell CQC what they are doing well, what they could do better and how they are going to improve.

Skillsbase documents as evidence for AQAA

AQAA includes outcome areas relating to staff training and development. Care Skillbase resources can be used as evidence to CQC that services are addressing basic skills in their organisation.

The AQAA also contains a section on ‘barriers to improvement’. Providers who feel that poor basic skills are a barrier for their organisation can use evidence from Skillsbase Skills Checks, and can cite the use of Skillsbase Manage Skills resources to demonstrate actions both to limit the influence of this barrier and take creative steps to overcome it.

Providers should include a description of the evidence and where the evidence can be found, not the evidence itself. CQC do not want to receive separate attachments of evidence to the completed AQAA; if they need to look at completed Skillsbase resources, they will do this when they visit providers.

For more information on CQC and on the AQAA, see CQC's guidance for professionals at www.cqc.org.uk