Visits & reviews
What is a quality of care review?
The quality of care review is the registered person's own periodic evaluation of how well the home is meeting children's needs, drawing on everything the home knows about itself.
Use this diagram+
Free to use on your own site, in training material or in a handout, as long as the credit link stays on it. Paste this where you want the diagram to appear.
<figure>
<img src="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/quality-of-care-review/diagram.svg" alt="quality of care review — diagram from CareOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
<figcaption>
<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/quality-of-care-review">What is a quality of care review?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk">CareOptix</a>
</figcaption>
</figure>Its value depends entirely on honesty. A review concluding that everything is satisfactory is usually a review that did not look, and inspectors read it that way.
It should draw on the independent visit reports, children's views, incidents, complaints, staffing and outcomes together, because the picture only appears when those are read against each other.
It is an evaluation rather than a summary. Describing the period is not the same as reaching conclusions about what needs to change.
What goes wrong in practice
- Written as a description of the period rather than an evaluation of quality.
- Independent visit findings not drawn in, so the two processes run separately.
- Children's views absent, which is the evidence it should weigh most.