Quality Team takes part in international discussion on ASCOT tool.

Community Integrated Care was proud to take part in an international web-chat on The Adult Social Care Outcomes Toolkit (ASCOT), sharing our plans for using this Toolkit to measure the impact of the services that we deliver.   

Members of our Quality Team – Julie York, Clinical Governance Manager; Shelagh Murphy, Strategic Quality Lead; and Phil Benson, Home Manager of The Peele, Manchester – took part in the University of Kent’s ‘Using ASCOT in Practice’ webinar series. The session had an international audience – including, a host of social and health care leaders, local authorities and academics from Finland, the Netherlands, Italy and including members of the Australian government.

In their presentation, the Quality Team explained how they are currently piloting ASCOT alongside Helen Sanderson’s Person-Centred Planning Tools, to ensure that we are enabling the people we support to achieve the outcomes that they want and need in life.

ASCOT measures the impact that social care support has on quality of life. It looks at eight key areas that define effective social care support (control over daily life, personal cleanliness and comfort, food and drink, personal safety, social participation and involvement, occupation, accommodation – cleanliness and comfort, and dignity), providing a measurement for the contribution to people’s lives that care providers make.

The Toolkit is closely aligned to the key outcomes of The Care Act. It can be used in any social care setting; as an organisation that supports people with a range of needs, it will allow Community Integrated Care to measure outcomes across all of our services in a unified way.    

Martin McGuigan, Director of Quality and Innovation, says: “Community Integrated Care strives to put the people we support and their aspirations at the heart of all we do, so it is important that we have leading tools evidence the difference that we make. I’m excited that we are at the using ASCOT to ensure that the people we support are genuinely directing their services and leading great lives.”

Julie York, Clinical Governance Manager, says: “It was a real honour to share our vision for ASCOT with leaders from across the health and social care sector. Community Integrated Care is aiming to become the UK’s Leading Health and Social Care Charity, so being one of the first providers to adopt this ambitious toolkit is a real demonstration of our commitment to delivering truly person-centred support. We are looking forward to completing our ASCOT pilot, and introducing the Toolkit in all of our services.”

For more information on ASCOT, visit the Personal Social Services Research Unit website.