Health and Social Care Webinar | employment reforms, recruitment and CQC regulations

Managing your workforce responsibilities and staying on the right side of the regulator are amongst the biggest challenges health and social care (HSC) providers face. Our quarterly seminars for HSC leaders aim to help you do just that.

Bringing together experts in employment law and CQC compliance, these informative sessions will cover the topical issues facing your sector, offering practical advice and solutions and giving you an opportunity to put your burning questions to our specialist team.

26 April at 2.00 pm

Hosted in collaboration with our sister companies, CQC Compliance and Care4Quality, the first of our free HSC webinars will cover a number of issues that are currently affecting, or are likely to affect, the HSC sector – from upcoming changes to employment legislation and ongoing difficulties around recruitment to common areas being spotlighted and scrutinised by the CQC, including safe staffing.

Join our panel of experts, WorkNest’s Principal Employment Law Adviser & Solicitor Toyah Marshall and C4Q’s Health and Social Care Consultant Debra Fox, as they address crucial workforce and regulatory considerations for the HSC sector.

Here’s the agenda in a nutshell:

Employment law updates for 2023, including minimum wage changes, making flexible working the default, and changes to family-friendly legislation.
Recruiting in HSC, including the CQC’s expectations in regard to DBS checks, recruitment best practices, and what Regulation 19 means in practice.
The CQC’s enforcement of safe staffing, including practical steps that providers can take to ensure they are compliant.

Have a question?

Submit it via the registration form so that our hosts can review it in advance – we’ll aim to answer as many as possible live during the session.

Part 1. Employment law updates

Recent minimum wage increases and the government’s proposals to enhance employees’ rights to flexible working and family leave could have a profound effect on HSC employers, as they review their staffing requirements against even tighter budgets.

Any change to employment law will naturally spark an increase in ER queries and immediate challenges for line managers to contend with. During the first part of this free and informative session specifically for HSC employers, we will be offering practical advice to help you deal with the challenges created by these recent and upcoming employment changes, stay ahead of the curve, and empower your line managers to respond confidently.

Part 2. Recruitment and DBS checks

In recent months, our team has noticed a dramatic increase in HSC providers rushing to dismiss employees after discovering that their DBS checks have expired. With staffing shortages still a major concern, do you really need to let go of staff in these circumstances?

As well as exploring this issue and possible solutions, we’ll be offering a timely reminder of recruitment best practices, including what the regulator expects you to have in place and how to utilise electronic systems to manage and keep on top of checks.

Plus, we’ll be taking a closer look at Regulation 19 of the Health and Social Care Act and the practical ways providers can fulfil their duty to “deploy enough suitably-qualified, competent and experienced staff”.

Part 3. Safe staffing

Having enough staff, with the right values and skills, is essential to delivering high quality care and support.

With the House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee reporting that an extra 475,000 jobs would be needed in health and an extra 490,000 in social care by the early part of the 2030s, the final part of the session will shine a light on safe staffing.

What does this look like in practice? What do the regulations require? And what practical steps can providers take to ensure that they are compliant should the regulator come knocking?

We’ll touch on everything from recruitment and documentation to dependency vs staffing levels, audit and governance.

Register below

Webinar review

“The webinar was a good length at one hour, well-paced and the content was valuable and relevant. I often get more benefit from a one-hour webinar from WorkNest than an entire training day from other providers.”

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