____

Since taking on a caring role an average of 51% of carers suffer physical injury.

(Ignored and Invisible?Carers Experience of the NHS, Carers National Association 1998)

To make a donation, or to find other ways to help support us
click here.

Our Quality Standards

Crossroads Care’s mission is to promote, offer, support and deliver high quality services for carers and people with care needs.

Staff and volunteers throughout Crossroads Care are expected to have a commitment to quality and continual development across the organisation. This is supported by the use of Crossroads Care’s quality evaluation tool (CROQUET), which is designed to help both the national association and individual schemes to assess their performance against common standards. Evaluation takes place through regular, independent quality audits of all parts of the organisation.

Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. It aims to make sure that better care is provided for everyone, whether that’s in hospital, in care homes, in people’s own homes, or elsewhere. It regulates health and adult social care services, whether provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. It also protects the rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act.
All regulated health and adult social care providers are required by law to register with the Care Quality Commission. At our last inspection we increased our rating and were rated as 3 Stars - Excellent.

You can read our latest inspection report on the CQC website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Standards for our Services in Greenwich and Lewisham

It is a requirement of our funding for services in the boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham that we demonstrate we have relevant policies and procedures in place. We are subject to annual inspections to ensure that we comply with the terms of our contracts. We also provide monthly and more detailed quarterly monitoring reports for specific services.

Last year, before the Care Quality Commission took over the role of the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) the following comments were made on the quality of our services nationally:

CSCI report commends the performance of Crossroads Caring for Carers
Crossroads’ latest Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) Corporate Provider report 2006 / 2007 issued early May (2008), has noted that Crossroads schemes performed better than the national comparators by a significant margin, with marked improvements being made since the last report and demonstrating particular strength in the standards associated with the health and well being of people.

Individually, ninety three per cent of the Crossroads schemes in England have been rated by the CSCI, the body responsible for regulating social care providers in England, as ‘good’ or ‘excellent’. The CSCI has published these ratings for the first time during April 2008.

Crossroads’ Chief Executive Anne Roberts said “We are delighted with the conclusions of the latest CSCI report. Carers are so often overlooked and undervalued by the rest of society. Crossroads tries to be a lifeline to these people, to give them respite and support when they most need it. The fact that they and the people they care for have spoken so positively to inspectors about the service they receive from us means more than anything. The report is also testament to the dedication, commitment and hard work of all our staff, trustees and volunteers’’

Crossroads’ unique approach to care provision in the home combines a service that meets the needs of carers by enabling them to take regular breaks from their caring responsibilities with practical support and companionship for the person with care needs.

Carers Views

We conduct an annual survey to find out what carers think of our services. We use this to ensure that services are developed to meet the needs of carers.This is what carers have said about our services:

Crossroads Care Association seeks to:

	Enable Crossroads Care to focus on improvement of care provision supported by a set of policies which are regularly reviewed and updated and to carry out its activities to the highest standards and in full compliance with relevant legislation and regulations.
	Promote, maintain and develop a recognised set of quality criteria for use by staff, the board of trustees, service users, carers and other stakeholders to continually assess and review performance against the agreed standards.
	Enable schemes to demonstrate that they have reached minimum agreed standards in all aspects of service provision and to provide encouragement and structured support for achieving targeted improvements and higher standards.
	Share information to enable schemes to assess if they are operating in an efficient, ethical and cost effective manner.
	Define and maintain a common terminology and frame of reference for use within Crossroads documentation which will aid internal communications and standards and be more readily understandable to external readers.

Schemes will seek to:

	Focus upon improving the quality of their services.
	Support the establishment of a carer centred culture.
	Help carers and service users to know what service and standards they can expect, and to judge if these are met in practice, through the issue of appropriately targeted communications.
	Use quality, monitoring and evaluation systems to demonstrate compliance with contractual requirements.
	Demonstrate the attainment of agreed standards in all aspects of service provision, and that these have been achieved in an ethical and cost effective manner.
	Seek to prevent problems rather than correct them.
	Develop and maintain a positive learning culture, which adopts a ‘no blame’ approach and creates opportunities for process evaluation and development.
	Involve staff at all levels, carers and service users in identifying problems, improvements and ways in which the care service can be improved and the organisation be made more efficient.

“When Crossroads Care give me a break I get time to think”

“The Support Worker is very flexible and understanding when times of our service need to be changed”

“ I have peace of mind knowing that my mother is in safe hands”

“Having a break is very important. My wife gets on very well with the support worker and enjoys her company”

“ the support worker has made a real difference to my son and is obviously well trained and experienced with autistic children”

“ We have had the same Support Worker for 9 years and she is like
part of the family”

Investor in People

We have achieved our ‘Retaining Recognition’ award for Investors in People, which means we meet the requirements of the Investors in People National Standard for the support and development of our staff.

Investors In People

Crossroads Greenwich & Lewisham Ltd is a company limited by guarantee registered in England number 3276204. Registered charity number 1062951. Registered office: 2A Wildfell Road, Catford, London SE6 4HU