Involvement of a third party
We know that providers engage a variety of other organisations to provide residential and home care services. We also know that these services will be different depending on your operating model and the type of care you provide.
These are known as third party arrangements. This means anyone you engage (not including employees, staff members or volunteers) to provide the services that you’re responsible for. It can be another company or a sole trader.
If you decide to use another organisation to deliver care and services to the people you provide care for, you need to tell us. This includes specialised care to meet the needs of people receiving care.
Having this information helps us understand how you deliver care and services. This means we’re better informed and can assess how you’re meeting your responsibilities.
We need to understand why you’ve started this arrangement. You also need to give us information about how you will manage the care these third parties deliver for you, even if it’s a management company.
You’re still responsible for how third parties perform on a day-to-day basis. You need to stay involved to meet that responsibility. You can’t transfer legal responsibilities as an approved provider to a third party.
Residential care
If you provide residential care, the third party arrangements we need to know about is engaging a management company that runs your services for you. This means that they have the day-to-day responsibility for your service including:
- human resource management
- quality and risk management
- financial management
- management of care and services.
In the digital form, we use the term ‘Management Company’ for these arrangements.
A residential care provider doesn’t have to tell us about all external contract arrangements. For example, you don’t need to tell us about these commonly ‘purchased in’ services:
- a catering company (meals and dining services)
- visiting physiotherapists
- dietitians.
Home care
In a home care setting, we know that third party arrangements are generally used where you don’t have staff with the necessary skills or qualifications for particular care and services. You need to tell us about all these arrangements. For example:
- nursing care
- management of skin integrity
- speech therapy
- podiatry.
In the form, we refer to a third party provider as a ‘Service Delivery Organisation’.
These arrangements need to align with the care and services allowed under Schedule 3 of the Quality of Care Principles 2014. The digital form asks you to select from the list of care and services, under the Quality of Care Principles, that match what the third party will deliver for you.
Third party personnel
You also need to tell us about:
- the third party contract manager – we use this to identify the person responsible for working with you to deliver services for you
- any particular decision-making responsibilities or activities they do for you
- the responsibilities or activities you have given them that fall under the definition of key personnel (explained under Key personnel).
People who own and work for a management company that runs your residential care service will be key personnel.
You need to include information about these people in the Key personnel changes section of the notification form and you must let them know what personal information you’re giving us. More information about this is in the Add as a new key personnel section.
Tip: In the field titled ‘Principal purpose of key personnel positions’, choose the one that best describes the role of a third party key personnel:
- External Entity Executive Decision Maker
- External Entity Manager
- Management Company Director
- Management Company Employee.
Updating a third party arrangement
Keep your third party information up to date so we understand how care is being delivered.
For example, if the people running your management company or service delivery organisation change, you should tell us about this. This includes changes to people’s names, their roles/duties or contact information.
You need to include a reason for the change. You also need to explain how you have reviewed your existing arrangements to make sure that the new personnel can help you to comply with your responsibilities.
You should also consider whether the updated arrangements are because of:
- your own organisational decisions, such as a change to your business model which needed you to quickly expand or reduce the services you provide
- changes to your existing workforce, where staff holding specific skills or qualifications don’t work for you anymore
- financial reasons that led you to make changes to your third party arrangements.
