Guidance for Responsible Individuals on statutory visits to regulated services

Purpose of this guidance

CIW has produced this guidance to provide advice and clarity to registered providers, responsible individuals (RIs) and CIW inspectors on the expectations around the undertaking and recording of RI quarterly visits to regulated services.  

These quarterly visits are required under the following regulations:

• Regulation 73 of the Regulated Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2017
• Regulation 56 of the Regulated Fostering Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2019
• Regulation 43 of the Regulated Advocacy Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2019
• Regulation 52 of the Adult Placement Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2019
• Regulation 42 of the Regulated Adoption Services (Service Providers and Responsible Individuals) (Wales) Regulations 2019

Regulatory requirement

The Regulations set out the requirement for the RI to visit the service at least once every three months. At this visit, the RI must meet with staff and people supported by the service.  

The statutory guidance specifies that the RI visit the service in person to monitor the performance of the service in relation to its statement of purpose and to inform the quality of care review.  

The visit includes the following:

• talking to, with consent and in private, a sample of individuals using the service and their representatives (if applicable)
• meeting with members of staff
• inspecting the premises, a selection of records of events; and
• any complaints records.

For domiciliary support services, this may also include:

• visiting a representative sample of individuals in their own home;  

For regulated fostering services and adult placement services, this also includes: 

• talking to, with consent and in private foster parents / adult placement carers (as applicable)  

The RI must ensure systems are in place to provide evidence that visits have taken place and have been logged and documented.    

CIW expectation in respect of these regulations  

CIW will expect to see documented evidence of RI visits at inspection. The regulations and guidance do not specify the details or format of what should be documented but we would expect to see written evidence of each RI visit.    

This should include:

• the date the visit took place,
• the numbers of staff and individuals spoken with,  
• a summary of the feedback from these discussions,
• an outline of the RIs observations of the premises and  
• an outline of the RI’s conclusions from the review of events and complaints records.  

Quality of care review and RI visits  

The RI must undertake a Quality of Care Review in which the relevant Regulations state the RI must put suitable arrangements in place to establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and improving the quality of care and support provided by the service.  

Here the statutory guidance provides additional clarity about the purpose of the RI visits stating the arrangements in place to assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service include the outcome of visits to monitor the service by the RI. Therefore, RI’s should use their three monthly visit to inform the quality of care review. Inspectors will seek evidence that the visits have been performed, recorded and that the six monthly quality review has been completed and how the RI has liaised with the manager.  

Inspectors may ask to see the quality of care review report during inspection. Our inspection reports will include comment on the six monthly Quality of Care Review.  

CIW have produced guidance for RI’s on the completion of the quality of care review that includes a review report template to assist them, however, there is no obligation for the RI to use this template.