comment
LegaL LIne
FOCUS ON FAIRNESS
The CQC has set new equality objectives, as Jenny Wilde explains
UNDER THE EQUALITY
ACT 2010, the CQC is
legally required to set
equality objectives at
least every four years. In
March 2017 the regulator
revealed four new objectives that will have a direct
impact on services.
The first is around PERSON-CENTRED CARE and
equality. Noting that leadership is required to make
person-centred care a reality, the CQC found that
some groups – including disabled people, people
from black and minority ethnic groups, lesbian, gay
and bisexual people, younger people and those aged
over 75 – were less likely to say that they were
involved in their care across a range of sectors. It also
found that black and minority ethnic (BME) people
and lesbian, gay and bisexual people reported poorer
mental health than other groups.
To combat this, the CQC has taken a series of
steps, including adding a specific question to Provider
Information Request forms (PIR) in relation to
equality, and helping inspectors to ask the right
questions and gather evidence.
Providers must be sure that their service and the
leaders carrying out regulated activities ensure that all
MEDIA SAVVY
If we are going to have a national
discussion about drugs, then all sides
of the argument have to be heard. The
debate can’t just include recovering
junkies and the soppy liberals who
have been calling for cannabis to be
legalised for decades, despite all the
evidence that long-term use leads to
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
Person-
centred care
is key to
achieving
these
objectives
and
compliance
with CQC
regulations.
service users are included
in the planning and
execution of their care.
The second is
ACCESSIBLE INFORMATION
AND COMMUNICATION.
With 11m people in the
UK with hearing loss and
almost 2m people living
with sight loss, all publicly
funded providers must
now meet the Accessible
Information Standard. This
aims to improve the lives
of people who need
information to be
communicated in a
specific way. Although the
standard doesn’t apply to
private providers, it should
still be seriously considered as good practice.
The third objective is around EQUALITY AND THE
WELL-LED PROVIDER. The equality aspects are now
better developed in the key lines of enquiry (KLOEs),
prompts and ratings characteristics in CQC’s new
assessment frameworks for both health and social
psychosis. We must also hear from
the parents and children of
addicts who have seen their
families torn apart by drugs.
And we must also hear from
the cops, doctors and nurses
who have to clean up the
human ruin caused by them.
We should also hear from
those of us who have had our
own experiences and
discovered that, for all the
fleeting moments of pleasure,
drugs provide no happy ending
for anyone. And they never will.
Tony Parsons, Sun, 23 September
Drug policy should not be entirely
determined by scientific evidence on
harms – what’s also important is how
society conceptualises and tolerates
different types of risk behaviour, and
care services. Inspectors are now prompted to look
for evidence that providers take account of equality
characteristics for people using their services.
Finally, there should be EQUAL ACCESS TO
PATHWAYS OF CARE. The CQC has noted that people
using health and social care services often need to
use more than one service, known as a ‘pathway of
care’. However, people in some groups may have
difficulty accessing particular care pathways, such
as GP servic es, which could lead to poorer outcomes
for them. The CQC found that there can be barriers
to accessing GP services for migrants, asylum
seekers, gypsies and travellers, and pathways could
be improved at a provider and local system level.
This should be a consideration of any substance
misuse service.
Providers of substance misuse services must be
aware of the importance of delivering care in line with
these objectives, particu lar ly as the CQC are, quite
rightly, prioritising how people from minority
backgrounds experience services. Person-centred care is
key to achieving these objectives and compliance with
CQC regulations.
Jenny Wilde is senior associate solicitor at Ridouts
Solicitors, www.ridout-law.com
The news, and the skews, in the national media
how culture and history interact with
policy priorities. However, it is still
striking that people in the UK who wish
to legally alter their states of
consciousness through psychoactive
drug use have little legal choice, and are
directed by drugs policy towards some
of the most harmful drugs available.
Harry Sumnall, Guardian, 1 September
Whether you meet an addict, visit a
drug-addicted community or encounter
the middle-class parents of an
irreversibly cannabis-induced psychotic
child, what is apparent is that it is drug
use (not its prohibition) that has
destroyed their lives, corrupted the
community or compromised a child’s
mental health. The truth is our law is
liberal, not punitive. The casualties of
drugs are casualties of uninhibited
freedom, not of prohibition. Had the
law stepped in, more young men and
women would be alive today or have a
future worth living.
Kathy Gyngell, Guardian, 20 September
The scandalous takeover of the BBC’s
flagship Today programme by the drug
lobby has just got even worse. You
may recall a few weeks ago a drug
propagandist giving out the street
prices of cocaine (the buying and
selling of which are imprisonable
offences) quite unchallenged, on this
programme. This is just one of many
instances where the arguments of
drug legalisers are prominently
presented without serious challenge,
on this and other BBC programmes. If,
like me, you oppose this policy, you are
hardly ever asked on.
Peter Hitchens, Mail On Sunday,
3 September
October 2017 | drinkanddrugsnews | 13