Lifeways proud to attend launch of national care standards report at Parliament

Lifeways was delighted to attend the launch of the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s (SCIE) report, Towards a National Care Service: Raising National Standards of Care, at the Houses of Parliament last month. 

The Government has committed to reforming adult social care through the creation of a National Care Service, underpinned by national standards designed to improve consistency, fairness and quality across England. As part of this work, an independent commission into adult social care, chaired by Baroness Casey, has been established. 

Supported by The Access Group, SCIE held four policy roundtables examining how national standards could support system reform and address poor experiences and outcomes. The report draws on this work to set out a framework for improving access, outcomes and experiences in adult social care. 

The event featured speakers Ashford MP Sojan Joseph, Minister for Care Stephen Kinnock and SCIE Trustee Isaac Samuels. 

Lifeways was represented by Director of Quality Gareth Roberts, who welcomed the opportunity to explore how Lifeways can align with the proposed standards and build on its own Care Standards, alongside discussions with colleagues from CQC, SCIE and sector partners. “It was encouraging to see many of the core themes in this report closely align with the care standards Lifeways co-produced with the people we support in 2024.  We engaged with people with lived experience to develop standards that create the outcomes that people want, and we are committed to delivering on them,” said Gareth. 

“The systems we have in place include the Lifeways Executive Advisory Panel (LEAP), which is a team of experts by experience who help shape policy, process and support delivery across the group. We also have a 200-strong team of Quality Checkers, again people with lived experience, who check our systems work as they should on the ground. They hold teams to account and this feeds back into the continuous improvement cycle, which has been key to achieving our own standards.” 

Gareth continued: “To ensure any national standards work effectively, we need collaboration across all touchpoints. There must be a culture change and recognition of the great work that is done within the social care sector. For too long, we have been in the shadow of health and, as stated within the report, we are ‘treated publicly and politically as secondary to the NHS’. 

“Social care providers – and this must include working-age adults, not just elder care – must have a voice. Social care providers are experts by experience themselves, yet we are often overlooked or treated as an afterthought. If we want to truly reform care and improve people’s outcomes, then it cannot and must not be done in isolation. 

“It was pleasing to hear the report would be shared with Baroness Casey and will hopefully feature in the Casey report in 2028. On behalf of Lifeways, I would like to thank SCIE for inviting us to their launch event, and we would be happy to support them in any way we can going forward.” 

You can find the full report here: https://www.scie.org.uk/app/uploads/2026/01/Towards-a-national-care-service-raising-national-standards-of-care-_FULL-REPORT_FINAL.pdf