Fulcrum x Care Surveys Packages
Turning Feedback into CQC Evidence: Why Fulcrum Has Partnered with Care Surveys
When assessing the quality of a care service, policies, audits, care records and governance processes can tell you a great deal.
But they cannot tell you everything.
To build a rounded picture of a service, providers also need to understand what care feels like to the people receiving it, what families are experiencing and what staff are seeing in their day-to-day work.
That is why Fulcrum Care has partnered with Care Surveys, bringing together independent care consultancy and structured stakeholder feedback.
Why Feedback Matters When Assessing a Care Service
CQC’s assessment approach draws on different evidence categories when considering quality statements.
These include people’s experience of care, feedback from staff and leaders and, where relevant, feedback from partners. Survey results are one of the ways evidence of people’s experiences can be captured.
For providers, this creates an important distinction.
It is possible to have systems, policies and audits in place while the experiences of people using the service tell a different story. Equally, positive experiences can provide valuable context around areas of practice that are working well.
Neither should be considered in isolation.
Independent feedback gives providers another way to test whether what they believe is happening within their service is reflected in the experiences of the people closest to it.
Bringing Two Perspectives Together
Fulcrum’s consultants regularly enter services to establish what is working, what presents a risk and what needs to improve.
Through mock inspections, audits, consultancy and turnaround support, we assess practice and governance and provide practical recommendations based on what we find.
Care Surveys approaches the service from a different direction.
Its surveys gather structured feedback directly from the people receiving care, families and staff, with professional partners also included within the turnaround package.
The result is a broader evidence picture.
One part examines the service through independent professional assessment. The other captures what different groups are saying about their actual experience.
Using Feedback Alongside a Mock CQC Inspection
A mock inspection should do more than tell a provider whether the paperwork is in place.
It should help identify potential areas of risk before a regulator does and give leaders a clearer understanding of where attention is needed.
Fulcrum’s Mock Inspections review areas including governance, care records, medication, safeguarding, staff training and wider service practice against the relevant CQC framework.
Through the new partnership, providers can also add a focused Care Surveys package to the process.
The Mock Inspection Survey includes a 15-question Client & Family Survey and a 15-question Staff Survey. The questions are set in advance, allowing the survey to be launched quickly and remain open for approximately 5 to 10 days.
The intention is for the resulting feedback documents to be available alongside the Fulcrum Mock Inspection report.
Rather than replacing any part of the inspection process, the survey adds another perspective to it.
If an audit finding points towards a potential issue, does feedback support that finding? If systems appear strong, is this reflected in people’s experiences? Are staff identifying themes that deserve closer attention?
Those are valuable questions for any provider trying to understand how inspection-ready their service really is.
Using Feedback During a Turnaround
The challenge is different when a service is already experiencing significant difficulties.
At this point, the priority is not simply readiness. Leaders need to understand where problems exist, establish what needs to change and be able to judge whether improvement work is having the intended effect.
The Turnaround Service Survey has therefore been designed as a more detailed and flexible exercise.
It includes separate surveys for clients and families, staff and professional partners. Questions can be customised to reflect the individual service, with accessible formats available including video, Makaton, PECS, BSL and multilingual surveys.
Importantly, the timing can also be adapted.
For some services, surveying early in the turnaround process can help establish a clearer baseline and uncover concerns that need to feed into the improvement plan.
For others, it may be more useful once work is under way and changes have had time to begin taking effect.
There is no value in gathering feedback simply because a survey has been scheduled. It needs to happen at a point when the findings can inform what happens next.
Making Sure More People Have the Opportunity to Be Heard
There is another important consideration when seeking feedback in social care: accessibility.
A standard online questionnaire will not work equally well for everybody.
People may communicate differently, need information presented visually, use supported communication or speak English as a second language.
Care Surveys provides accessible survey formats to help address this. Depending on the package, these include video surveys, Makaton, PECS, BSL and multilingual options.
That matters because a feedback exercise becomes considerably less useful if the people most affected by the service face barriers to participating in it.
Feedback Should Lead Somewhere
Collecting responses is not the end goal.
The value lies in what a provider does with the information.
An issue raised consistently by families may need to be investigated. Staff feedback might identify a difference between a policy and what happens in practice. Strong feedback in another area may provide reassurance that recent changes are being experienced positively.
Used well, feedback becomes part of a wider cycle of assessment, action and review.
That is where the Fulcrum and Care Surveys partnership makes sense.
Fulcrum helps providers understand the service through independent consultancy and inspection expertise. Care Surveys provides another evidence source by capturing the experiences of the people around it.
Together, they give providers a more rounded starting point for asking an important question:
What is really happening within our service, and what does the evidence tell us we should do next?
Find Out More About Fulcrum x Care Surveys
Two Care Surveys options are initially available alongside Fulcrum support:
Mock Inspection Survey: £450 + VAT
A focused Client & Family Survey and Staff Survey designed to run alongside a Fulcrum Mock Inspection.
Turnaround Service Survey: £2,500 + VAT
A more extensive and customisable programme gathering feedback from clients and families, staff and professional partners during a service turnaround.
Find out more about the Fulcrum x Care Surveys partnership and compare the available survey options. View Care Survey Packages
To discuss which approach would be appropriate for your service, contact the Fulcrum team on 020 3411 4014 or info@fulcrum.care.