Our team of Quality Checkers give the people we support a voice

Our team of Quality Checkers are highly valued employees within Consensus. They all live within one of our services, so are experts in the issues faced by people with learning disabilities as they have a disability themselves. With their lived-experience, they regularly visit our 98 services across England, Scotland and Wales. With the support of their own PA, each Quality Checker undertakes an audit process to ensure the individuals we support have a voice, share their views and talk to someone about how they are feeling about the support provided. The team are also instrumental in running and planning Consensus Voices – our regular Forums for the people we support to discuss different topics and ways in which we can enhance our support.

Whilst visiting each service, our team of Quality Checkers will complete an audit and will score the service on different key aspects. In order to reach a reliable overall score, our Quality Checkers must look at several factors and these include the following.

They look at environmental elements, to ensure the environment is safe and clean and are meeting the needs of the individuals we support. They also look at the paperwork within each service to ensure that the team are using their support plans effectively and update plans where necessary.

It is also important that they speak to the individuals to find out what their views on the services are and what changes we may be able to make, to help improve how we are delivering support to meet their needs. They will make sure individuals have choices, that decisions aren’t controlled and interactions between employees and individuals is ok. They will also ask them their goals and aspirations to ensure we are meeting these so everyone has the opportunity to succeed in their lives. They will also talk to the service managers, support teams and care workers to ensure they are also meeting the needs of the individuals they support.

Following on from the audit the Quality Checker may leave some actions for the manager to complete and these will be followed up by the Lead Quality Checker to ensure any action highlighted is completed. At the end of the audit process they produce a graphical report which is submitted on a quarterly basis to Consensus’ Continuous Improvement Group, which highlights the things across the services which are going well and the things which may need to be improved upon.

To become a Quality Checker, each person must go through an application and interview process to ensure the best person is selected for the job. They also undertake training to fully prepare them for the role. Our current Quality Checkers have had the following training; talking mats, an introduction to sign, basic Maybo training and safeguarding.

Our team of Quality Checkers complement the management team and feedback on important issues and the impact this has on people with learning disabilities to ensure that informed decisions and changes are made.