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Quality Assessment Framework
Quality Assessment Framework
The Quality Assessment Framework (QAF) is a tool developed by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), to provide common quality standards for all Supporting People services. This gives Supporting People Teams a robust and common framework to review services against. The QAF also gives service providers a quality benchmark to work towards, and shows how to aim for continous improvements in their services.
The QAF contains six key objectives that services are measured against inlcuding:
- Support Planning for service users
- Securtiy, Health and Safety of service users
- How easily service users can complain about their service
The Supporting People Team work closely with service providers before and after their reviews. The team will work with providers to ensure that minimum quality standards are reached, and to ensure that providers are working towards achieving continuous improvement for the service.
Stage 1 - Desktop Review
The first stage of the QAF process is a self assessment, which is carried out by the service provider. They consider the service they provide against quality standards that are set out in the QAF.
The QAF will then be considered by the Supporting People Review officer leading on the review. The review officer will consider the providers answers, and will look at supporting evidence such as procedures, performance returns, stakeholder views and service user reviews.
Stage 2 - validation visit
The review officer may decide to carry out a validation visit which gathers further evidence, and checks the systems and services that the providers says are in place. Supporting People visits are not statutory inspections but, a validation visit gives the officer the ability to look at the service in more detail. As part of the validation visit the officer will speak to staff and service users. The review officer will agree a timetable for the day with the service provider, and will meet with the staff team early in the day to outline the purpose of the review and the days agenda.
Review results
At the end of the visit the review officer will give immediate feedback to the provider. The feedback will highlight to providers, areas that are not up to stanard and may require work, areas of current good practice and areas where improvement can be made.
The review officer may need to carry out more investigation, and when this is complete a review report will be produced. The provider will be given the chance to comment on the report before it is finalised. All services will be given an action plan to assist them in improving their service to the next level.
if the service being reviewed does not meet the minimum standards, the provider may be given an time limited action plan to reach the required standard. Review officers will suppor the provider to reach the next level, and another validation visit may be carried out at the end of that period to ensure the service meets the minimum standard.