Response to PSA thematic review
Social Work England response to PSA thematic review
Letter to Graham Mockler, Assistant Director of Scrutiny and Quality, The Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care
January 2020
Dear Mr Mockler,
Re: Performance review – thematic reviews shortlist
We welcome the opportunity to comment on the proposals that will form part of the Authority’s plans to implement a programme of thematic reviews.
About us
Social Work England is a specialist body taking a new approach to regulating social workers in their vital roles. We believe in the power of collaboration and share a common goal with those we regulate—to protect the public, enable positive change and ultimately improve people’s lives.
Feedback
We support the Authority’s plans to implement a programme of thematic reviews. We agree that it is appropriate to keep the programme separate to the performance review process and welcome a focus on knowledge sharing.
We are pleased to see that the aim of the programme is not to standardise or mandate particular approaches: what is good practice in health professional regulation may not translate to social work regulation. As the social work regulator, some of the proposed areas will look different for us than for a healthcare regulator. For this reason, we are glad that any recommendations made will be for our consideration and that the focus is on sharing knowledge and notable practice, and the development of guidance where appropriate.
As a regulator, we want to work with others, contributing to conversations about regulation, and seeking to influence system-wide improvement. We have placed considerable emphasis on our commitment to ongoing communication and collaboration from the outset. We strive to ensure our work is informed by the sector so that we may deliver regulation that’s fit for purpose and develops trust and confidence in the profession. Sharing knowledge and collaborating with those in the sector is at the heart of our regulatory approach and we look forward to the opportunity to be a part of that work.
We are aware of the multidisciplinary nature of the health and social care landscape where many professions work side by side. Sharing best practice, as proposed by the thematic review programme, will help us to better understand how our counterparts regulate, and further our knowledge so that we can ensure people receive the best possible support from those we regulate, whenever they might need it in life.
Do you agree with the topics contained within the shortlist? Please provide reasons for your answers.
We believe these topics would help both the Authority and regulators to understand better how activity is undertaken and to identify learning and notable practice across the regulators.
However, we note that the thematic reviews are predominantly focused on fitness to practise related activities, which also account for a large share of the annual performance reviews. As such, we would be interested to understand how the authority intends to maintain a distinction between the proposed thematic and the performance reviews.
Are there other areas you would like to see on the shortlist? If so, please provide a short summary of each.
We think the following topics would be appropriate and useful for the thematic review programme:
- Continuing fitness to practise (CPD/CET/revalidation).
- Management of issues that cross jurisdictions between regulators.
- Management of overseas applications.
- Approach to the prevention agenda.
- Approach to education quality assurance.
- Approach to equality diversity inclusion (EDI), and their use of EDI data.
- Innovative approaches and the use of “regulatory sandboxes”.
- Approach to registration and annotation.
- Please provide your prioritisation for the reviews on the shortlist, including any items you wish to add.
We would suggest the risk assessment review be carried out first (noting our comments above about the potential overlap with the performance review), followed by; how regulators work together; the corporate complaints process; publication of fitness to practise outcomes; and management of illegal/unregistered practice.
Do you foresee any specific challenges with undertaking thematic reviews?
Given the diversity of the different professions, and to a lesser degree the different legislative frameworks across the 10 regulators, it may be challenging to draw meaningful conclusions across their activity. There will also be a specific challenge relating to how the Authority considers the context in which Social Work England regulates – in particular its relationship with the other social work regulators in the UK.
We would also emphasise the importance of communicating any guidance or practice in a way that allows regulators sufficient scope to apply it within their own regulatory context.
I hope the Authority finds this feedback helpful and welcome the opportunity to discuss this further if the Authority would find this useful.
Yours sincerely
Colum Conway