Last week, Joe* was telling us [the Quality Care Campaign] about renting his own space while carrying out his application for a Care Quality Commission (CQC) registration, before he’s even been accepted.
This week, Joe tells us his opinions on the vigorous CQC process. Our question to Joe was ‘is it not a good thing the process is vigorous?’
Joe said: “Here’s a question. Why should they be? Why should they be allowed to do some of the things they do? For example, why should they have the authority as an external public body to tell me who I can and can’t have helping me run my business?
“I can understand certain rules like people’s criminal records of a violent nature and dishonest things like that, but ultimately the liability is on me. Now if they want to scrutinise me, fine, but why should they have a say in who I can appoint to run my business with is beyond me.”
Joe had his chosen manager ready to go prior to CQC registration and was a colleague at a former place of work early on in his career. The CQC require all new care businesses to have a registered manager otherwise they are unable to process their application.
“You can’t operate without a registered manager, so I’m forced to register one as well, but I don’t want that position, I’m not qualified for it. I don’t have my NVQ 5 or GCF as they call it now. I’ve done the job and I can’t do it, so I’ve been forced to employ somebody.
“Fortunately, they agreed not to take on a contract until we’ve got the registration so I’m not paying them yet. But I am forced, as a start-up company, to pay somebody a significant amount of money as well that the CQC have to pre-approve, which seems really bizarre to me.”
Baffled Joe wasn’t having the best experience with the CQC application process, but it was about to get worse for him.
“My DBS check was delayed by 41 days, which is whole office month’s rent that this delay cost me. It’s all so frustrating.
“I had my CQC application returned to me because my location name wasn’t my company name, but my company name isn’t on the door. I’m registered to a company’s house and so it is a registered business within this address but on my application, it didn’t have my company name and it got sent back which delayed me by another four days – I mean this is how pedantic they [CQC] can be.”
Joe was finding his journey getting more difficult with each passing day, and getting a CQC registration isn’t a simple task and can cost applicants a lot of time and money, but will be a very satisfying moment when Joe is approved by the Government body.
“A week is a long time to wait in this industry when you’re paying for an office, I’ve been working now on this project full-time for weeks and weeks and weeks, I’m living off my savings. I’ve not been working in a paid job and every second is a second wasted not helping the elderly.
“I know all this sounds like I have indicated I have a massive problem with any regulation at all, which just isn’t the case.”
Regulation is there to help business owners provide a safe environment for their clients, but some potential owners, including Joe, feel the way regulation is distributed needs work.
In our final week of this blog series, Joe tells us his final steps to getting that all important registration through creating numerous documentation and his final steps as he aims to achieve the registration that will allow him to start his business.