Effective evidence gathering for stress-free clinic inspections

When inspecting your clinic, the CQC wants to ensure you meet the fundamental standards and key lines of enquiry (KLOE) as set out in their guidance. Five questions are asked, which guide their decisions in their enquiries: are you safe, caring, responsive, effective and well-led.

Gathering evidence must not be seen as a tick-box exercise, but rather as an ongoing audit to ensure that due process is being followed. When things go wrong, you will be glad to have an audit trail. Many clinics prefer to just get on with the treatment. While that is commendable, it is also important to have processes set in place that are appropriate to the size of the clinic and the complexity of the treatments given.

A good way of knowing where forms are needed in place, is to do a process-mapping exercise, looking at all the contact points of the clients and documents. This can highlight areas where there are gaps or bottlenecks in your process. Conduct this exercise with the different staff roles.