Changes will be formally made to the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) with effect from 1 October 2010.
Chair of the national NMDS-SC Data User Group, David Cubey, annouces changes the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care.
The changes outlined below will be will be formally made to the National Minimum Data Set for Social Care (NMDS-SC) with effect from 1 October 2010. However, the additional items will be available to employers prior to that. The changes were carefully evaluated through the national NMDS-SC data user group, which includes representatives of social care employers, the Department of Health and other bodies such as the General Social Care Council, the Care Quality Commission, Local Government Association, the Children’s Workforce Development Commission and Skills for Care. The evaluation of these changes included a national consultation exercise and a question piloting exercise.
Migrant Workers
Over the past year it has become clear to social care employers and to other major stakeholders that it is essential to assess the significance of migrant labour in the overall supply of and demand for labour in social care. This information is currently not available from other sources. It was agreed that three additional questions should be added to the NMDS-SC worker questionnaire to establish a worker’s migrant status.
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i. Country of birth (using the same list of countries as the Labour Force Survey)
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ii. Year of arrival in the UK (if country of birth not UK/Channel Islands/ Isle of Man)
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iii. Nationality (UK or other/specified)
Qualifications held by Social Care Workers
It has also become clear both to social care employers and Skills for Care that the collection of information on qualifications held by social care workers could be improved. The national NMDS-SC data user group recommended changes that extend the scope of the data collection from ‘social care’ qualifications to all/any qualifications held or being worked towards, to enable a full picture to be obtained of the qualifications held by the social care workforce. There will be an extra code added for ‘any other qualification held’ and an extra code for ‘any other qualification being studied/worked towards’. Details of the specific ‘other qualifications’ will not be requested.
It was also recommended that there should be an extra code added for ‘no qualifications held’, and an extra code for ‘no qualifications being worked towards’. There is evidence that the current data collection considerably underestimates qualification achievement and therefore undermines social care employers and Skills for Care achievements in raising the qualification levels of the social care work force. This change will enable analysis to distinguish between those holding no qualifications and those for whom the information is not available, and consequently improve the validity of qualifications data.
Information Sharing with the Care Quality Commission (CQC)
A data sharing protocol whereby employers agree to Skills for Care sharing NMDS-SC data directly with CQC (previously CSCI) thereby obviating the need to provide data twice, has become redundant due to technical (interoperability) issues, and has been replaced by an arrangement whereby employers download a data report from NMDS-SC Online to submit to CQC themselves. This arrangement is now working well. The data sharing with CSCI/CQC permission question will therefore be removed from the data set.
CQC can revisit the protocol in future if circumstances warrant doing so. The new arrangements could be a ‘model’ for any future data sharing with other bodies (e.g. the General Social Care Council).
PROPOSED ENHANCEMENTS TO THE NATIONAL MINIMUM DATA SET FOR SOCIAL CARE (NMDS-SC)
Individuals who employ their own care and support staff
The nature of social care is changing with increasing numbers of people employing their own care and support staff through direct payments from local authorities or other sources of funding. This is in line with the Government’s proposed changes to social care set out in Putting People First (December 2007), Transforming Social Care (January 2008) and the new Adult Care Workforce Strategy (April 2009).
It is proposed that for this group of employers a number of questions be removed from the NMDS-SC. A simplified version would be provided with integrated guidance on individual questions. It would also ask for the occupational category of personal assistants (q16) and there would be an additional code for the destination of staff leaving ‘to work with another person employing their own support staff’ (q21).
The final evaluation report of the consultations and pilots on these changes will be posted on the NMDS-SC website when completed:
http://www.nmds-sc-online.org.uk/content/view.aspx?id=Changes%20to%20the%20NMDS-SC
Anouncement made by David Cubey, Regional Development Officer, Skills for Care, South East and Chair of the national NMDS-SC Data User Group