Quality and Performance Monitoring

Accreditation

The Accreditation Process is a Quality & Monitoring tool used to monitor the suitability of Providers. It enables the Administering Authority to be assured that any service provider whom we contract with is an effective and robust organisation, which will continue to be in business in the future.

There are five elements to the accreditation assessment process,

1. Financial viability.

2. Competent administrative procedures.

3. Effective employment policies.

4. Robust management procedures.

5. Competence/Track record in providing services.

Performance Monitoring

Performance is measured on a quarterly basis.

Providers complete an electronic workbook which records the levels of performance in a number of areas:

· Availability of bed-spaces in accommodation based services only.

· Utilisation of bed-spaces in accommodation based services or support places in floating support services.

· Throughput or number of people who have used the service in that quarter.

· Length of stay of people in that service.

· Outcome of the service i.e. what percentage of service users move on successfully from short term accommodation based services or what percentage of service users remain independent in long term or floating support services.

Providers also tell us about the sort of places that people move onto when they leave the service and about the numbers of people they evict or who abandoned their tenancies.

There are targets set for all of these areas and each service will receive a report to show how their quarterly figures measure up to those targets and to enquire about any problems that are identified. If problems persist for more than two quarters then the Supporting people team will work with the provider to remedy the situation.

Home Improvement Agencies also complete a workbook with slightly different information, eg.,

number of enquiries
number of jobs completed
time taken to complete jobs, etc

Community alarm only services have been completing their own workbooks but from August 06, Communities and Local Government (CLG) temporarily suspended this.

Providers are now also completing outcomes forms which are returned and analysed nationally by the Client Record Office on a quarterly basis. In addition to this, providers are completing regional performance indicators relating to outcomes from 2008-09. This will enable the positive and wide ranging impact of SP funded services to be demonstrated.

Quality Monitoring (Quality Assesment Framework)

From 1 April 2009 the Nottinghamshire Supporting People team will be using the new Quality Assessment Framework (QAF) to monitor the quality of contracted services. The new documents that providers will need in order to complete their self assessments are available below.

Outcomes Monitoring

Provider also complete additional information in relation to service user outcomes. To view documents relating to outcomes, click here.