In this podcast, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at AfterAthena discusses the importance of gas safety in the workplace. He highlights gas risks and legal obligations, emphasising the need for regular maintenance and gas safety checks. The podcast serves as a valuable starting point for improving compliance and raising awareness.

Welcome to our monthly podcast with Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at AfterAthena Limited. In this episode, we continue our theme of musculoskeletal back injuries and discuss display screen equipment (DSE) and ergonomics. We'll highlight the regulations that require employers to undertake suitable risk assessments of workstations and provide relevant information and training to DSE users. We'll also discuss the risks associated with working from home and provide tips on how employees can help themselves.

This episode looks specifically at moving and handling operations, as well as: 

• Hierarchy of control and how employers can reduce the risk
• Importance of a moving and handling policy and risk assessments
• Lifting equipment 

This episode looks specifically at one of the new safe environments quality statements under the key question of safe. 

• Recap of the Acts and how they have changed
• Section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022 

This episode looks at the term Reasonably Practicable, what it means and Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and reasonably practicable.

This month, Head of Health and Safety at AfterAthena, Neil Hughes‑Hutchings, looks at updated guidance on fire safety responsibilities under section 156 of the Building Safety Act 2022, which come into force from 1st October 2023. 

This episode looks specifically at one of the new safe environments quality statements under the key question of safe. 

This episode looks specifically at the importance of Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans or PEEPs and the recommendations under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. 

This episode explores temperature in the workplace, looking specifically at thermal comfort and what the law states about temperatures in the workplace. There are also tips for keeping cool and reasonable adjustments that can be considered.

The next in our difficult conversations series, this episode explores what to do when an employee is underperforming, including the use of personal improvement plans and the formal stages of the capability procedure. 

This episode explores workplace violence, particularly the warning signs to look out for and how to prevent and reduce the risk of workplace violence occurring. It's important that employees are also provided with the right information and training to support them should they encounter workplace violence firsthand.

In this month's health and safety podcast, Neil Hughes-Hutchings looks specifically at powered transporters, most specifically e-scooters and e-bikes which are the most common form, and explores the legislation surrounding these modes of transport. These considerations should be taken on board should you manage or own these new modes of transport.

In this episode, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at AfterAthena Limited, delves into asbestos management. Neil outlines the purpose of asbestos surveys, identifying asbestos-containing materials (ACMs), assessing their condition, and creating asbestos registers. He also explains the responsibilities of duty holders under the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012.

Tune in for an overview of these crucial processes aimed at ensuring asbestos safety and compliance.

In this month's health and safety podcast, Neil Hughes-Hutchings discusses the different types of active monitoring, audits, safety inspections, safety surveys, safety tours and sampling. These types of active monitoring will help you to identify compliance with standards, so that you can recognise good performance and ensure it is maintained. It may also identify non-compliance and will allow you to put corrective actions in place to rectify the situation and prevent recurrence. 

This month, Sarah Baker, Apprentice Solicitor at Napthens, discusses the decision around why the menopause will not be considered a protected characteristic by Government, what perimenopause and the menopause are and the symptoms.

If you are a care home provider or care sector organisation, icy surfaces on your premises can also present a hazard to members of the public/visitors who enter your premises. The general duties under section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, poses a duty to manage all hazards in the workplace (this would include snow and ice), and section 3 of the same Act, poses a general duty to non-employees, as long as they are part of our undertaking. 

This month, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Head of Napthens Health and Safety,  discusses what you might expect if an HSE inspector visits your organisation, the powers they have and the different types of notices, letters or advice they may give you.

This episode gives an overview of what neurodiversity is and how HR can support with neurodiversity in the workplace.

We will discuss:

• People who identify themselves as neurodivergent typically have one or more of the conditions or disorders such as autism, ADHD, epilepsy, dyslexia, OCD, Tourette syndrome or an acquired neurodivergence (i.e., through incidence or brain trauma)
• In terms of the workplace, to be seen as ‘inclusive’, an employer needs to make an effort to celebrate neurodiversity while taking steps to accommodate the specific challenges that neurodiverse individuals may face. If an employer refuses to adapt processes with neurodivergent individuals in mind, they actually risk missing out on top talent
• Top tips to support people who are neurodiverse in the workplace 

This month,  Neil Hughes-Hutchings senior Health and Safety Consultant at Napthens Health and Safety is going to guide you through one of the health and safety terms that crop up on many occasions, and that is competence. 

Neil will talk you through what competence is and why it is important to identify the competencies needed for the different job roles within your organisation. 

In this podcast you will get an overview of what High Functioning Anxiety is, the common symptoms, possible causes and ways in which someone suffering with anxiety can get help and treatment.

The subject for discussion this month centres on the Fire Safety Act, which clarifies the scope of the Fire Safety Order.

In this podcast, Neil Hughes-Hutchings makes clear what the Responsible Person must consider when conducting fire risk assessments, if not done so already.

This time, Abi interviewed Dawn Waller, former CQC Inspector and Policy Manager,  discussing how providers can raise the topic of relationships and sexuality with residents in a constructive and compassionate way. 

The subject for discussion this month centres on the lessons learned from a recent Health & Safety Executive prosecution of a care provider in Scotland.  

In this podcast, Chris Walker, Head of Health & Safety at Napthens shares some real practical examples of how and why things can go wrong if we don’t have the health and safety basics in order. 

This episode, hosted by Senior Health and Safety Consultant Neil Hughes-Hutchings at AfterAthena, covers the concept of positive risk taking and how it can benefit individuals in the care sector. It emphasises the importance of sensible risk assessment approaches that balance individual needs, dignity, and freedom with safety.

In episodes 1 and 2 , we looked at what you need to do to become a registered manager.

We have looked at what it means to be fit to be a manager, what skills and qualifications you need, and now we will tackle health.

This is the area that I find people get concerned about. You are asked within the process to sign a declaration to say you are fit and healthy for the job and to give your GPs details.

In this episode, Abi is going to walk you through the law, CQC guidance for providers, what you should expect in an interview and more!

 Losing someone you love can be extremely traumatic. It can also be a huge relief depending on the circumstances. It is not the same for everyone, and we cannot predict how relatives or significant people to the person who has died may feel.

This isn’t about being a fully qualified bereavement practitioner. This isn’t about having all the answers. This is all about what you know - a person-centred response to human emotions.

A few tipis by our care expert, Abi Spence:

• Treat the person with dignity and respect, create space and privacy for them. Let the person know where you are taking them, and what happens next
• Never presume you know the person or how they feel. They may never have visited, you may have been told things by the person who has died, but this does not mean you know the relationship or how they feel
• Observe what is happening - Observing sensitively enables you to gain a little insight into how that person may be experiencing their first emotions relating to death
   

In previous editions, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health & Safety Consultant at Napthens Health & Safety has covered topics such as lone working and the procurement of contractors,  this month Neil is going to be talking about hazardous substances; what you can do to control them and what your legal duties are .

As an employer, you should be doing all that you can to properly understand the potential risks faced by your employees and others affected by your work activities and then find effective means of control.

In this podcast, Chris will talk you through the importance of removing hazards in a workplace, and how we can reduce the likelihood of interacting with the different hazards. And most importantly, the true meaning of controlling risk.

Welcome to the second episode of the 'Inspection inside out' podcast. This time, Abi will focus on explaining what are qualifications, skills experience and competencies. And what is expected by the CQC.

 Any care home provider or care sector organisation that uses contractors has health and safety responsibilities. When selecting contractors, it is important to investigate them and make enquiries to ensure that you are not putting your residents, employees, and members of the public at risk.

In this episode, Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Senior Health and Safety Consultant at Napthens Health & Safety provides an overview of the importance of having a procurement procedure in place when bringing a contractor on board. In particular, the podcast covers: 

•  Risk assessment. Any organisation or individual should carry out a risk assessment for the activity they are undertaking. The significant findings of a risk assessment will usually be written unless there are fewer than five employees.  
•  A method statement details how a contractor intends to undertake a work activity and should summarise their approach to the job in hand 
• Insurance. Insurance is not a legal requirement, but it provides cover for the contractor if a member of the public or client of theirs claims because they have suffered injury or property damage as a result of the contractor’s activities.

Welcome to your new podcast,’ Inspection inside out’ by Abi Spence. Over the next few weeks, Abi will be looking at the key elements of what CQC is looking for to become a CQC Registered Manager.

Meet Abi Spence
Abi, as the Registration and Inspection Specialist, has worked for and with Government agencies relevant to social care for the past 12+ years. Primarily with the Department of Health, Social Services Inspectorate, Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and since its inception, the Care Quality Commission (CQC). As part of this long involvement, Abi has developed a comprehensive and detailed understanding of relevant issues and has worked closely with stakeholders such as people that use services, carers, providers, local government, the Department of Health, Ofsted and the Audit Commission.

The ’Inspection inside out’ series is where Abi will de-mystify the process in a way that will help you decide whether a registered manager in the care sector is the right career for you. 

In this episode
Abi focuses on what does 'Good Character' mean and what will an inspector look for and do to ensure you are of good character

Workforce, LPS, costs and COVID-19 are just some of the key issues you will need to address in 2022. Abi Spence explains more and offers some tips and useful resources to help you address these important topics.

On 11 March, the CQC updated its guidance on meeting the duty of candour to make it clear what providers must do to meet the requirements of the regulation and the circumstances in which it must be applied. 

In this episode, Tracy and Ali will be discussing the CQC guidance, how to implement a duty of candour culture, and why saying sorry is not admitting fault when something goes wrong. 

In this episode, our Head of Primary Care, Tracy, is joined by GP Policy Led, Ali to talk about staff immunisations. 

At the beginning of March, the NHS confirmed that nine out of ten staff had been immunised against Covid‐19. However, it’s widely known that not everyone wants to have a vaccine, and that includes some healthcare staff. 

Tracy & Ali will be discussing the issue of staff who don’t want to be vaccinated, how to address the issue and briefly mentioning the difficulties of planning for future vaccination campaigns.

We all hear a lot about resilience these days, often focused on individual employees managing stress. But what about your organisation as a whole? How can you create a workplace that can weather any storm and come out stronger?

In this month’s General Practice Podcast, Tracy Green, Head of Primary Care talks to Alison Lowerson, QCS’s GP Policy Lead.

Tracy and Alison will be discussing Appraisals and how these were paused for GPs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This podcast will aim to provide greater insight into the following areas:

• Why some people want the appraisal process to carry on
• What practices should now do who may have paused their own appraisal processes
• What policies and procedures practices can utilise
• What we have learnt from talking to GPs, practice managers and the teams

In this month’s General Practice Podcast, Tracy Green, Head of Primary Care talks to Alison Lowerson, QCS’s GP Policy Lead.

Tracy and Alison will be discussing Complaints and will be explaining what Practices should be doing to manage them.

After providing a brief overview of the complaints procedure, the Podcast will aim to provide greater insight into the following areas:

• Complaints handling best practice.
• The Complaints Standards Framework, a new set of standards for the NHS.
• Complaints made during the pandemic.
• Top tips for managing complaints.

In this month’s podcast, I’ll be talking about dementia with Jackie Pool, QCS’s Dementia Care Champion.

Dementia is a condition that has touched so many of our lives. It affects 850,000 people in the UK. Astonishingly, according to the Alzheimer’s Society, 1 in 6 people over 80 have dementia, and 70 percent of people in care homes live with dementia, or have severe memory problems.

Jackie, who recently joined QCS, has worked with people living with dementia for almost 40 years. An occupational therapist, and an acclaimed author in the field of dementia care, Jackie has vast experience having worked in healthcare, social care and in academia.

In this Podcast, we’ll be focusing on:

•  How GP services can ensure that people living with dementia receive an excellent standard of support.
• Fresh insight and perspectives on how GPs can best provide support.
• The role of collaboration and creating more joined-up services
• The protocols that the CQC expects to be in place.
• How GPs can not only demonstrate the requisite policies and procedures to a CQC inspector, but also evidence best practice steps that go over and above what is expected
• The crucial role Patient Participation Groups can play in effecting positive change.
• The importance of creating dementia-friendly GP surgeries by thinking about space and adapting signage and colour schemes.
• The PAL tool: What is it and how can it make a difference

In this episode, we are joined by Kiran Johnson who is the co-founder of Primary Care Direct to talk about workforce, relationships, wellbeing and tools that are available to support Primary Care Networks (PCNs). 

Later in the episode, we talk about the Additional Roles Reimbursements and how PCNs can gain support to recruit those roles. You can also find out how to embed the people in these roles within the PCN and what support is available nationally. 

Free Event, Primary Care Direct - A Wellbeing Occasion for Practice Management Staff

It’s fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has left many practice management staff feeling drained, overwhelmed and even stressed to breaking point in some roles. Practice managers and PCN leads have told us that they have experienced feeling helpless, feeling anxious or depressed, and feeling ‘guilty’ for taking time out when you know your team are stretched.

Without good wellbeing, there cannot be good patient care.  Strong, resilient wellbeing is needed now more than ever in primary care and our free ‘All About You – A Wellbeing Occasion for Practice Management Staff’ could be just the treatment you need and deserve.

Sponsored by Quality Compliance Systems, Moodbeam and Circular Wave, Primary Care Direct are inviting you to the launch of our Wellbeing Service on Thursday 19 November 17.30-19.00 via Teams.  

Take 5 minutes out with some mindfulness, play our wellbeing bingo game and win some great prizes along the way whilst finding out more about our service including how we can support you with our Well Being Buddy’s, Help in a Crisis line, our partnerships with digital wellbeing services and how to deal with difficult patients and situations.

Sound good?  Book your free place by Monday 16 November 2020  here.

To find out more about Primary Care Direct or to contact Kiran Johnson please either call,  01482 649900, email: kiranjohnson@primarycaredirect.co.uk or visit www.primarycaredirect.co.uk

In this episode, Tracy and Alison discussed mandatory training and how practices can ensure that all of the team have adequate training to meet regulations. They also talked about what the CQC looks for as evidence to prove that the practice is meeting the key lines of enquiry with training being delivered and monitored according to people’s roles.

Topics covered: 

• Mandatory training
• Training requirements to meet your practice
• Training matrix
• How QCS can help with a policy and skills matrix 

In this month's podcast, I’ll be talking with my colleague, Alison Lowerson about the Care Quality Commission’s Key Lines of Enquiry and its 2021 strategy. 

As everyone listening today will no doubt be aware, the CQC was established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in England. It refreshed the way it inspected practices in 2014.

We know, for example, that the CQC has focused largely on the WELL LED KLOE over the last couple of years. Why? Well, because it recognised that when a provider is ‘well led’, generally speaking  - everything else follows. 

However, the COVID-crisis has inspired yet another sea-change in thinking in the CQC’s approach. While it remains a regulator and an inspector, it also wants to engage more closely with practices and to provide a supporting role.

In this podcast we'll discuss;

• What does phase 3 include?
• Why are they setting up COVID-19 Provider Collaboration Reviews (PCRS) and what are the objectives of this work?
• What happens in phase 4?
• What do we think may change for practices?
• What would you recommend practices do now to be compliant and evidence the fact that they are safe?
• What are inspectors expecting to see as evidence?

As we're all aware, this year, health workers are facing the nightmare scenario of dealing with both flu and Coronavirus at the same time. 

The government’s response has been to launch “the most comprehensive flu programme in UK history”. 

It announced that it would offer flu vaccinations to 30 million people this winter.  

The expanded programme will be available to: 

• people aged between 50 and 64; 
• households of those who are shielding, and; 
• children in their first year of secondary school.

What’s less clear is how such a large programme will actually be delivered on the ground. 

There are many unanswered questions, which could create a number of unforeseen compliance challenges. 

In this episode, Tracy Green, Head of Primary Care at QCS will be discussing some of these compliance challenges with QCS's GP Policy Lead Alison Lowerson.

To find out more about QCS' GP Management System please visit: www.qcs.co.uk/gppodcast

This month we will be talking about working at height. Working at any height can cause serious injury. A fall from a height of just one or two steps can cause serious injury.

•  What could go wrong
• What I need to do
• Guidelines to Employers

The hazards presented by Portable electrical appliances in your workplace should be assessed using normal risk assessment techniques. 

A robust maintenance program can be achieved by a combination of the three following actions:

1. Checks by the user
2. Visual inspection by a person appointed to do this
3. Combined inspection and tests by a competent person or contractor

Consent is a key part to bespoke, person–centred care delivery, without it, you simply aren’t providing a person-centred service. That said, consent is not always a straightforward process, there are other factors such as Mental Capacity to consider.

Evidencing consent

• For our service users
• How can we support staff to ensure that consent to care/support happens?
• What can providers do to monitor the evidence of consent?

This month Neil Hughes-Hutchings, Head of Health and Safety at AfterAthena, embarks on the journey that is ESG - Environmental, Social and Governance.  We can say it is a collective term for an organisation’s impact on the environment and society as well as how the organisation is governed in terms of leadership, pay, audits and internal control and processes. 

This episode looks at the upcoming changes to the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023 which is due to come into force in Summer 2024. 

In one of our most passionate and thought-provoking episodes yet, Barry Price speaks to Katrina Hall, founder of Bay Care Group and a leading voice in the Providers Unite movement.

Katrina shares her journey into care, starting at just 14 years old, and how her lived experience has shaped a business that now delivers over 9,000 hours of care a week. From frontline worker to movement leader, she discusses the reality of today’s care challenges — including funding cuts, workforce pressures, and the risk of losing small providers.

This episode explores:

• Katrina’s rise through the ranks of social care
• Her motivation behind starting Bay Care
• The origins and impact of Providers Unite
• The urgent message to Government: value social care
• Advice for other care leaders and why peer-to-peer support matters

If you care about the future of the sector, this is one not to miss.

Listen now.

Want to join the conversation?

If you have any topics you’d like us to cover or want to be a guest on a future episode, email us at qcs@qcs.co.uk

In this episode of The Care Social, Barry Price  and Gerry McMurdie talk about the important role that family and friends play as care partners in adult social care. They share honest insights and helpful advice on how care teams can work closely with families – from building trust and having clear conversations, to involving them in care planning and understanding risks.

Whether you’re a care manager, support worker, or looking after someone with dementia, this episode offers down-to-earth tips to help you involve families in the right way and make care more personal.

 Listen now to hear how working well with families can lead to better care, fewer complaints, and stronger relationships.

In this episode:

• Why we use the term ‘care partners’ – and what it means
• Talking clearly about care and consent
• How digital care planning can help keep families involved
• Including families in care reviews and risk planning
• Setting expectations and dealing with any challenges

Want to join the conversation?
If you have a topic, you’d like us to cover or want to be a guest on a future episode, email us at qcs@qcs.co.uk

In this month's HR podcast, Olivia Riley, Solicitor at AfterAthena Limited, discusses a recent case update where an apprentice with childcare responsibilities who was accused of skiving, winning her tribunal claim for sexual discrimination.