A Joint Statement from Social Care Leaders and Practitioners
July 2026

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We are a group of senior care leaders, former CQC inspectors, and frontline clinicians
who have come together over the past 6 months to build practical, sector-led
solutions to the compliance and documentation challenges facing adult social care.
We are submitting this evidence jointly, as a group of individuals from within that
wider community of over 100 experts, rather than on behalf of any single organisation.

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Between us, we have run care services, inspected them, commissioned them and
worked to fix the compliance problems we encountered from the inside. Collectively
we have led many CQC-rated Outstanding services. We are writing because we think
the Commission would benefit from what our experience tells us about where the real
opportunity in this reform lies.

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Much of the evidence before this Commission will understandably focus on what is
failing: workforce shortages, funding pressure, fragmented records, and inconsistent
quality. But it risks obscuring that the sector is also full of people already building
better ways of working, often with very little support or recognition, because the need
is too immediate to wait for system-wide reform to catch up. We have seen first-hand
that when the right collaboration tools are available, providers respond.

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The work we have been part of makes that case in practice. Over the last 6 months,
we and dozens of other sector experts have come together voluntarily to build
OpenDoc, a first-of-its-kind, shared, living library of CQC-aligned policies and
procedures, freely available to every care provider in the country, regardless of size or
budget. Working across the NHS and independent sector, some for over 40 years,
many of us have seen the quality of a care provider’s compliance documentation
come down to what they can afford to spend.

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That is not a sustainable position for a sector under this much pressure. Policies and
procedures are the bedrock of how quality care is governed. Policies reduce
unwarranted variation in care delivery, enable staff to work more confidently, and
create a stronger foundation for safe practice. The CQC has been increasingly clear
that policies and procedures must not only exist, but be meaningfully implemented,
and the sector needs tools and infrastructure that support the shift from static
documentation to demonstrable implementation.

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Within three months of launch, more than 1,000 care organisations across social care
(including care homes, homecare, supported living and mental health services) had
signed up, which tells its own story about how badly this kind of practical
infrastructure was needed.

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What this experience has shown us is what is possible when sector expertise and
the right technology are combined deliberately. Through our OpenDoc model,
good practice developed in one part of the system can easily be trusted or adopted
elsewhere. The Commission has an opportunity to amplify this practice.

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Our experience suggests four lessons relevant to the Commission’s objectives:

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1. Providers want consistency. When high-quality resources became freely
available, demand was immediate.

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2. Cost is creating inequality. Better compliance should not be exclusive to those
who can afford consultants.

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3. Technology amplifies expertise. Technology worked because it was built by
practitioners.

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4. The system still fails to learn. Knowledge generated by one provider rarely
benefits another.

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In light of these lessons, we recommend that the Commission:

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● Recognise, in its medium-term recommendations, the role that sector-led
collaboration between practitioners, regulators, and technology can play in
raising and maintaining standards. This is not a substitute for funding and
workforce reform. It can deliver real, immediate improvement alongside it, and
improve the quality of care across providers of all sizes.

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● Ensure that any new framework for technology and AI in adult social care is
designed with the people who will use it, drawing on all available practical,
cross-sector expertise.

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● Establish a quality recognition framework for sector-built tools and resources.
Adult social care already generates enormous amounts of practical
knowledge. The missing piece has been a mechanism for commissioners and
providers to distinguish between tools that have been properly validated by
sector expertise and for good practice developed in one part of the system to
be adopted elsewhere.

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● Treat the evidence generated by sector-led tools and collaborations as a
genuine and valuable source of insight for the Commission’s ongoing work, not
as anecdotes to be set against more formal evidence.
Adult social care does not need to wait for every structural challenge to be resolved
before improving quality. Our experience demonstrates that when practitioners,
regulators and technology work together, meaningful improvements can be
achieved quickly and at scale. The sector has been building the foundations for a
safer, collaborative system, and we hope the Commission will ensure that future
reforms make more space to recognise and accelerate these kinds of sector-led
solutions.

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We would welcome the opportunity to discuss this submission or our experience more
widely with the Commission directly.

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Signed by the OpenDoc experts,

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● Mark Topps, Former Registered Manager and current Head of OpenDoc
Community
● Rebecca Saunders, Managing Director, Safe Spaces Care
● Mariana Costea, Registered General Nurse and Health & Social Care
Consultant
● Tracey McGee, Health & Social Care Consultant
● Lyndsey Lloyd, Registered Mental Health Nurse and Founder of Elder Au Pair
● Carolyn Tipper, Director, CTheSolution Limited
● James Parker, Service Director, Care is Central
● Caroline Baines, Director, OwnSpace Health & Social Care Consultancy
● Lucy Buxton, Care Quality Consultant and ex-nurse
● Karen Mills, Health & Social Care Consultant
● Tina Welford, Former CQC Inspector and Health & Social Care Consultant
● Christopher Alexander, Director of Regulation and Policy, Beaumont Ridge Care
Group
● Dr Devan Moodley, Chief Executive, Health Connect
● Professor Craig Harris, Chief Commissioning Officer and Deputy CEO Lancashire
and South Cumbria Integrated Care Board
● Sarah Okoro, Founder, Viva City Care and Health & Social Care Consultant
● Paula Cashmore, Health & Social Care Consultant
● Gerry Rudd, Operations Manager, Compassionate Care Group
● Kavita Brown, Learning Director, Learn Develop Grow Training provider for Health
& Social Care
● Claire Callaghan, Registered Manager and Director, Knoll Care Partnership
● Eddie Hoult, Former CQC Inspector and current Health & Social Care Consultant
● Tristana Rodriguez, Policy and Safeguarding Consultant
● Elizabeth West, Founder & Director at Elizabeth Care Consulting
● Michelle Corrigan, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Care Hub
● Katie Thorn, Director of Innovation, Digital Care Hub
● Colin Newton, Social Care Consultant and Interim Manager
● Elisha Kemp, Director of EK Psychotherapies Ltd
● Ogar Nkang, Frontline Care Professional and Organisational Development
Consultant
● Liam Duff, Head of Operations, Eclipse Care Group
● Jenny Stanley, Director of Training and Education
● Kate Meacock, Campaigner and Lived Experience
● Nicola Gill, Personal care assistant, Trainer, and Author
● Julie Garrity, Independent Health and Social Care Advisor and Author