Why has paper work taken precedence over patient care?

Answered by Sheila Scott

Dear Ro,

I do understand your question and that when you are running a care service it can sometimes feel as if paperwork is taking precedence but that should never be the case.

It is really important always to remember that you should not be completing paperwork that is not relevant to your service and if you believe that you are being required to complete paperwork that serves no useful purpose then please write to me again telling me about it.

In the meantime we live in a changing world and particularly a litigious world and also of course a regulated world.

Paperwork should evidence the service you provide and that it is compliant with the law, not just health and social care regulations but other legal requirements too including Health and Safety and Fire Protection.

All of which offer protection not just to your service users but to you and your staff too.

I would like to add that there are some steps that you can take to mitigate the impact of paperwork.

One is to buy a complete system covering all the above plus HR, risk assessment and other areas. The one that QCS supplies to its customers is comprehensive and kept up to date for instance. That way instead of starting from scratch you have all the policies, procedures and forms and you just have to adapt them to your service.

The second point I want to make is that so often the Owner or Registered Manager of a service does all the paperwork themselves. This really isn’t necessary. There are of course things that you need to do but there will also be other paperwork that some of your staff can do.

You need to have confidence in your staff and you shouldn’t overburden them of course.

The most important thing in this note though is as I said at the beginning:

You should never be keeping paperwork that is not relevant to your service and if you believe that you are being required to complete paperwork that serves no useful purpose then please write to me again telling me about it.

Best wishes,

Sheila