Dear Sheila,
I am confused by the amount of times per year a care worker should receive supervision? My CQC inspector said that it should be a minimum of six sessions regardless of whether the employee is full or part time. I always thought it was six times for full time and pro rata for part time. Can you please tell me which it is, as I am getting conflicting guidance. Many thanks Dominique

Answered by Sheila Scott

Dear Dominique,

Thank you for your question. This is the guidance currently available on the CQC website:

• Where appropriate, staff must be supervised until they can demonstrate required/acceptable levels of competence to carry out their role unsupervised
• Staff should receive appropriate ongoing or periodic supervision in their role to make sure competence is maintained

The full guidance can be found at: http://www.cqc.org.uk/content/regulation-18-staffing#guidance

Supervision is not just about one to one meetings, you can also include some staff meetings and some in house training as part of supervision too. It is important that you record all activity relating to supervision in the individual staff members file. There is also a briefing sheet on the Social Care Institute for Excellence website at http://www.scie.org.uk/publications/briefings/briefing43/

Best wishes.
Sheila