Month: July 2025

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) recently introduced its Single Assessment Framework. The new framework simplifies and standardises inspections across health and social care. It focuses on outcomes, continuous improvement, and user experiences.

 

Key Changes to Ratings

The Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) are still important. The CQC looks for Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led care.

The framework uses 34 concise Quality Statements, grouped under the five KLOEs.

These include:

• “I Statements” – From the perspective of people using services.
• “We Statements” – From the perspective of the provider.

A new scoring system is in use, which scores each statement on a scale of 1 to 4.

• 1: Significant shortfalls
• 2: Some shortfalls
• 3: Good standard
• 4: Exceptional standard

These scores influence the overall rating:

• Inadequate: 2+ areas rated 1
• Requires Improvement: 2+ areas rated 2
• Good: No more than 1 area rated 2, none rated 1
• Outstanding: At least 2 areas rated 4

This approach recognises consistent excellence across multiple areas.

 

Key Changes to Inspections

The CQC no longer relies solely on scheduled inspections. Instead, evidence is continuously collected through:

• Regular feedback from service users, families, and staff
• Digital records and reports
• Outcomes and incidents

This change means providers must ensure quality in daily operations, not just prepare for inspections.

 

What Does Outstanding Practice Look Like?

To receive an Outstanding CQC rating, care providers must be Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. Here are some examples of how to achieve this:

Safe:

• Proactive safeguarding
• eMAR systems for medication safety

Effective:

• Staff trained beyond mandatory requirements
• E.g. dementia champions, advanced communication skills

Caring:

• Staff deliver person-centred care to all service users
• Tailoring daily routines to the service users’ preferences

Responsive:

• Creative approaches to meet emotional, social, and cultural needs
• E.g. sensory gardens, language support

Well-led:

• Regular staff feedback sessions
• Clear vision and strategy

For more examples, we recommend reading reports of Outstanding providers. Go to the CQC website, search for providers in your area, e.g. Care homes in Birmingham, and filter results by Outstanding ratings.

 

How Accreditation Can Help

Advantage is an independent accreditation body specialising in health and social care. We help care organisations achieve excellence in their everyday practice. Accreditation demonstrates to the CQC that your organisation is Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. Here’s how:

Safe:

• Staff receive high-quality, robust training to ensure care is delivered safely
• Safeguarding training helps staff understand their duty to protect their service users
• Courses are kept up-to-date with the latest advice and best practices on topics like infection prevention and safe handling of medication

Effective:

• Accredited training is evidence-based and tailored to real-world practice
• Continuing Professional Development (CPD) helps ensure staff development and encourages retention

Caring:

• Through quality training, staff gain skills in communication, empathy, and supporting independence
• Accredited equality and diversity courses help staff meet people’s emotional, social, and cultural needs

Responsive:

• Training on care planning and communication equips teams to deliver tailored support
• Accredited courses give staff confidence to handle sensitive situations with compassion and professionalism

Well-Led:

• Accreditation demonstrates strong leadership and governance
• Accredited centres show they prioritise high-quality care through structured staff development
• Centres can use our online portal to keep training records and provide evidence of staff competency
• Offering accredited CPD supports a positive workplace culture and shows leaders value their teams

 

Become an Accredited Centre

Advantage-accredited centres can:

• Deliver our ready-to-use health and social care courses
• Accredit your own bespoke training to our standards
• Equip staff to meet and exceed CQC expectations across all KLOEs
• Offer accredited training externally, raising your organisation’s profile

Contact us to find out how we can support you.

Advantage Accreditation supports training providers and organisations with high-quality, ready-to-use materials for compliance-based courses. Our new Level 2 Award in Evacuation Sheet Training materials are now available to accredited centres.

About the Course

The Level 2 Award in Evacuation Sheet Training equips learners with the knowledge and practical skills to use evacuation sheets safely during emergency evacuation procedures, particularly for individuals with impaired mobility.

The course covers:

• How to use evacuation equipment safely
• Legislation relating to evacuation procedures and people with impaired mobility
• The importance of using equipment correctly for personal safety
• Practical skills for using evacuation equipment

Resources available:

• Slide Presentation
• Lesson Plan
• Syllabus
• Trainer Notes & Guidance
• Assessment
• Group Activities & Scenarios

The course is mapped to relevant legislation and guidance, including:

• Health and Safety at Work Act 1974
• Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER)
• Manual Handling Operations Regulations 2002
• Equality Act 2010

Additional Fire Safety Training Materials

Advantage offers more fire safety training materials:

Level 2 Award in Evacuation Equipment

A similar course focusing on evacuation chairs and other equipment, ensuring staff can support safe evacuation for individuals with reduced mobility.

Level 2 Award in Fire Extinguisher and Fire Safety Awareness

Covering:

• Types of fire extinguishers
• Practical use and demonstration
• Actions to take on discovering a fire
• Fire suppression systems and plans

All our training materials are designed to:

• Save you time with ready-to-use, professionally developed content
• Meet compliance requirements with up-to-date legislative mapping
• Enhance learning with practical assessments and engaging group activities
• Support your trainers with detailed guidance and structured delivery

Get Started

If your centre is already accredited, please contact us to add this course to your portfolio. If you’re not yet accredited with Advantage, please get in touch to discuss how we can support you.

At first, the process of getting a course accredited can feel daunting. From searching for accreditation costs to understanding what documents to submit, it’s easy to get lost. Advantage Accreditation keeps things simple with a clear four-step process.

We offer accreditation for training providers for both online and in-person courses. All approved courses receive CPD accreditation through Advantage. We work across all industries, with a particular speciality in health and social care and compliance-based topics.

Step 1: Centre Approval

Your journey begins with Centre Approval. This initial evaluation checks your organisation’s foundations to ensure you can deliver effective accredited training. We ask for documents such as:

• Health and Safety Policy
• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Policy
• Staff Development Procedure
• Company Insurance Certificate

Don’t worry if you don’t have all of these in place yet. Requirements vary depending on your organisation’s size and sector. If anything is missing or needs updating, we provide guidance to help you achieve accreditation based on UK standards and guidance.

Once approved, you will receive your Centre Approval certificate, and we will add your organisation to our directory of accredited centres. This increases your visibility to those searching online for training providers in the UK.

Step 2: Trainer Approval

Next is Trainer Approval. We assess your trainers to ensure they have:

• Ability to Teach – clear presentation and facilitation skills
• Subject Knowledge – appropriate knowledge of the subjects they deliver

If trainers lack formal qualifications, we can assess occupational competence instead, ensuring their professional roles demonstrate expertise. Advantage also offers Train the Trainer programmes with modules on Presentation Skills and Subject Knowledge.

Step 3: Course Approval

This is where your accredited courses come to life. You can:

Use Advantage ready-made courses – our library includes over 100 accredited training programmes in Health and Safety, First Aid, Food Safety, Mental Health, Safeguarding and more. All packages come with slide decks, lesson plans, trainer notes, assessments, and interactive activities.

and/or

Submit your own original courses for review. We’ll provide detailed feedback to ensure your content meets accreditation standards.

If you’re developing bespoke training, simply submit your materials (slide decks, plans, notes, etc). Our team will conduct a full quality audit, provide feedback, and outline any changes needed for approval.

Step 4: Certification

Once your centre, trainers, and courses are approved, you’re ready to deliver accredited training.

As an accredited centre, you gain access to our online portal, making training admin easy. You can:

• Generate learner certificates with both our logo and yours
• Track training schedules and attendance
• Monitor refresher dates for compliance
• Maintain records in preparation for audits

Next Steps

For a breakdown of our fees and to explore free accreditation options, download our brochure or contact our team.

The team at Advantage Accreditation have developed new ready-to-use course materials for the Level 2 Award in Tracheostomy Care Awareness.

These training materials are available to our accredited training centres.

The course is intended for health and social care staff who work with individuals with a tracheostomy. This is an awareness-level course and not an advanced clinical course.

Course contents:

• What is a tracheostomy?
• Respiratory tracts
• Why a tracheostomy may be needed
• Types of tubes
• Humidification
• Suction
• How to manage and care for a stoma site

As with all our course materials, the training is mapped to relevant industry standards and guidance.

Course duration:

• 3 hours

Course materials available:

• Presentation slides
• Lesson plan
• Syllabus
• Trainer notes and guidance
• Group activities
• Assessment

If you are interested in delivering this course as an accredited Advantage centre, please contact us.