Look Who’s Talking: Samuel Barrington

Article by Samuel Barrington

Care Improvement Associates Ltd was founded in April 2017 after my role as Head of Operations for a well-established care quality consultancy based in Yorkshire was made redundant.

I was in the process of buying our first family home when the bank contacted us to say they could no longer offer us a mortgage due to the change in circumstances.

This motivated me and I was driven to set up my own care quality consultancy, Care Improvement Associates (CIA), with the aim of supporting care providers to not just aim for Care Quality Commission (CQC) compliance, but to aim for outstanding care quality.

Care Improvement Associates is a national network of over 40 care quality consultants, which includes current CQC inspectors, specialist advisers, former inspectors, experienced managers and directors, who all share the aim of supporting care providers to provide outstanding care quality.

The biggest asset to a consultancy, enabling us to provide high-quality services to our clients, has been ensuring we recruit only the best consultants for our CIA national network.

From start-ups to leading providers, CIA offers a tailored solution, supporting you to deliver high quality care and aim for the CQC rating of ‘Outstanding’. I began my career as a care assistant, before becoming a nurse, a manager, a Director, and then a consultant.

In addition, I had supported my own father at the end of his life, so I felt I could draw on this first-hand experience of being a family member of a ‘cared for person’ in a residential care home setting at the end of life, to support providers to aim higher.

Setting up a company in the care quality consultancy sector has been one of the most challenging, but also most rewarding, choices I have ever made.

Getting my head around the financial side of running a business, including tax, accounts and such like, was never my strong point, so I’ve experienced a steep learning curve in that respect.

Based on this, my advice would always be to get a credible accountant from day one and manage your accounts very closely, especially if you are running a company that is VAT registered and paying corporation tax.

In terms of the services CIA provides, our clients tend to be care home/ nursing home providers, domiciliary/ home care providers or supported living providers. Although we are seeing a rise in requests for support from private health-related services and Primary Care services. We offer mock CQC inspections, interim care managers, project management and crisis management.

We also provide bespoke care quality masterclasses and mentoring to the home care sector, with the aim of achieving ‘Outstanding’, which are based on a full year of research into CQC outstanding-rated home care providers (‘What do the CQC Notice in Order to Rate a Service as Outstanding?’).

We have published a guide, ‘Be Outstanding – The Essential Home Care Quality Guide’, off the back of this research, which is available to purchase via our website (www.theciagroup.co.uk). This guide was co-developed with Louie Werth and his company, Care Research. We will soon be publishing our care home research and guide using the same methodology.

National Care Quality Professionals Association (NCQPA)

We utilised these high standards and adopted them as a basis to develop and launch a membership association specifically for independent care quality professionals. The National Care Quality Professionals Association (NCQPA) is leading the way in setting and raising standards in the independent care quality sector.

Many independent care quality professionals, care quality consultancy organisations, trainers and training providers are signing up to our code of ethics and professional conduct. All are assessed against our tried and tested quality standards framework, with the aim of receiving our quality mark and NCQPA registration.

If you are successful in your application to become a registered member of the NCQPA, our quality mark and registration will show the care sector and potential clients that you have met our high level of NCQPA quality assessment framework standards.

We feel it will give extra confidence to the care and support provider sector, along with stakeholders, to show they are engaging with a competent, qualified, experienced professional. You will be entered onto our soon to be released searchable register and awarded a unique registration number and quality mark, along with NCQPA certification (www.ncqpa.org.uk).

You may be one of the many professionals out there with vast experience and expertise. We want to recognise this and help promote you to the right people who need your specialist support.

Not only that, being an NCQPA registered member shows you are part of the movement of people raising the standards of care for those individuals being supported by care services.

Together, we believe the NCQPA quality mark will fast become the industry standard mark for competent care quality professionals.

It’s not just members who benefit from NCQPA standards. From a care provider’s perspective, commissioning or employing a credible and competent care quality professional, consultancy organisation, trainer or training provider is paramount to the protection and reputation of your business, staff and team, and the service provided to potentially vulnerable people.

We all know that literally anybody can set up as a care consultant. It is not a legally protected title.

Using and endorsing NCQPA registered members means you can be more confident while adding an extra layer of protection and a further safeguard for your business and service when commissioning or employing a care quality professional.

All our members have to agree to our code of ethics and professional conduct as well as meeting a high level of quality framework standards.

Samuel Barrington

www.theciagroup.co.uk

With over 20 years in the care sector, Samuel has a strong passion to support care providers across the adult social care sector.

Starting his career as a care assistant in his hometown of Scarborough, Samuel soon moved on to nursing and care management, which included board level care quality Director roles across the country.

His mission now is to support care providers to deliver outstanding care to all individuals, every single day.