Understanding the different rules
Find out the difference between Acts, regulations,
national minimum standards and guidelines and how
you can use them to improve your service.
Acts and regulations
Updated 14 March 2008
When running a care service there are certain things you
have to do by law. These are explained in the
relevant Acts and regulations.
There are two Acts that relate to adult care
services.
The main Act is the Care Standards Act
2000.
We are now able to provide you with a regularly updated version
of the Act, linked to below.
Please note: you must agree to the terms and conditions relating to
this legislation before using it.
It should be used as guidance only, and you should seek legal
advice about the current position before you take any action that
relies on this information.
The other Act is the Health and Social Care (Community
Health and Standards) Act 2003.
The link below goes to another government website. We
cannot guarantee the information is up to date.
The Care Standards Act 2000:
- specifies the types of services that must be registered
- gives the minister in charge of care services the power to set
national minimum standards.
The Acts are followed by lots of regulations
which go into more detail.
There are regulations that apply to every type of service and
others that are service specific.
The regulations cover things like:
- registration – for example, how we determine
if someone is fit to be a provider
- fees – how much it costs to register as a
provider
- basic requirements of what you have to do to
run a service.
To help you understand what's required by the regulations, there
is a set of national minimum standards for each type of
service.
National minimum standards
The national minimum standards set a minimum level of
service for each element of providing a care service.
They are not enforceable by law but are
important guidelines to help providers, inspectors and people who
use services to judge the standard of service.
They are designed to make sure everyone understands what's
expected and so services can be measured against the same
standards.
But it's not enough to just meet the minimum
standards.
To provide the best service you can, you have to look at how
your service affects the lives of the people who use it.
Guidance
The national minimum standards can be open to interpretation.
Not everyone will have the same understanding of what they
mean.
How to interpret the standards
- Find out what CSCI's agreed interpretation is for the standards
with our guidance logs.
- Check out the range of guidance available for providers and our
inspectors.
The guidance helps our inspectors judge if a service is meeting
the minimum standard or exceeding it.
You can use our guidance documents too. They can help you
measure your own performance and improve it.
Good practice
There are lots of examples of good practice
available from organisations like the Social Care Institute for Excellence,
which can help you learn from other people's experiences.
We also give examples of good practice in many of our publications.
Look out for the InFocus series on topics like medication and
safeguarding adults.
Key lines of regulatory assessment
To help you understand what we expect from a good service, we
have written a set of guidelines called the Key lines of regulatory assessment.
You can compare your service to what our guidelines say a poor,
adequate, good, or excellent service looks like.
By going beyond the minimum standards, you can make a
positive impact on the lives of the people who use
your service.
In turn, this will benefit your business. If you are serving the
people who use your service well we will reflect this in our
inspection reports and in the star rating we give you.