NICE (National Institute for Clinical Excellence) has been consulting on a Quality Standard for Carers, which spans health and social care. The quality standards were published for consultation on 12 October 2020 and the consultation closed at 5pm on Monday 9 November 2020. 

We are concerned that some of the quality statements, as currently written, fall short of current laws on social care. Whilst we recognise that some of the standards might help to increase support across the NHS, the standards in their current form are not fully compatible in their breadth with good practice work such as the NHSE GP Quality Markers.

NICE standards and statements are developed for use by a whole range of different stakeholders. Given that we feel these statements fall short of carers’ existing rights, we would suggest that this is providing inaccurate information to those stakeholders, due to the limited nature of the statements.

We would strongly suggest that the standards are rewritten to reflect social care law and the NHSE/I GP Quality Markers good practice work.