Description of the contract
****CONTRACT AWARD*****
Introduction
Background information on Social Care Wales’s work can be found on our website https://socialcare.wales/about.
Social Care Wales is the regulator of the social care workforce in Wales. That means we register practitioners, set standards of practice and make sure workers are fit to practise. We are also responsible for developing and improving the workforce, improving services, setting priorities for research and gathering data. We are funded by the Welsh Government.
As part of our role, we are required to establish codes of professional practice
that hold people registered with us to account for their practice and behaviour, with
the ambition of meeting our strategic outcome of “a registered social care
workforce that has the public’s confidence”.
We have previously commissioned an external provider to conduct sector engagement on the codes of professional practice and the practice guidance. The findings can be found in Appendix 7.
What is required / ‘The Requirements’
The consultation on the codes of professional practice https://socialcare.wales/news-stories/codes-consultation, is taking place between 30 September and 17 December 2024. As a direct impact of this, we need to review the practice guidance that supports the codes.
There are five sets of practice guidance and three sets of associated guidance: social media, candour and Female Genital Mutilation. These are listed on our website: https://socialcare.wales/dealing-with-concerns/codes-of-practice-and-guidance
We are seeking a suitably skilled and experienced provider to review the existing practice guidance and assess the feasibility of consolidating the five sets of practice guidance and three associated guidance documents into a single, unified set, aligned with the aims and objectives outlined in Section 2.3 below.
The successful supplier will:
- Update desk research carried out in Appendix 7 on approaches to practice guidance in other regulated countries in the UK, including social care and nursing within this scope, identifying positive features that could be incorporated into this review.
- Undertake a review of the findings in Appendix 7 to explore how the existing five sets of guidance can be combined into a single set of guidance.
- Confirm the findings from the desk research and any impact of the consultation on the codes of professional practice.
- Consider the practice guidance in Appendix 7 to identify changes required, including any perceived gaps between the codes and practice guidance that need addressing.
- Incorporate any areas of new guidance in line with the recommendations of the research carried out in Appendix 7.
- Produce a revised single set of practice guidance and agree it with an internal steering group. The guidance should incorporate the five original sets of practice guidance and the additional three topic-based practice guidance: social media, candour and Female Genital Mutilation, plus any recommendations contained in Appendix 7.
- Carry out agreed engagement with the sector on the proposed practice guidance, identifying any changes required, including any perceived gaps identified by the sector engagement.
- Produce revised guidance based on the findings of the engagement work and subsequent agreement with steering group. The guidance should reflect the cross-cutting themes of anti-discriminatory practice, well-being, inclusion and the Welsh language. These themes should be embedded throughout.
- Recommend a range of formats for the guidance before publication, including but not exclusive to web pages.
- Produce bilingual, accessible products that meet Social Care Wales’s organisational tone of voice and brand guidelines and are ready for publication.
Outputs
By 31 May 2025 the supplier must produce:
Project Plan: A detailed plan outlining the approach, timelines, and milestones for achieving the project objectives.
Engagement Strategy: A clear plan for sector-wide engagement, identifying key audiences and methods for gathering feedback.
Consolidated Practice Guidance: A single, unified set of bilingual practice guidance combining the existing five sets and three associated guidance documents which will incorporate sector feedback, research findings, and key themes such as anti-discrimination, well-being, inclusion, and the Welsh language.
Publication-Ready Resources: Bilingual and accessible guidance materials compliant with WCAG 2.2 AA standards and in formats optimised for digital delivery (e.g., web pages), ensuring usability across platforms.
Recommendations for Formats: Suggestions for delivering the guidance in various formats to maximize accessibility and usability.
Please see Specification for more information
|