8 July 2025
Yesterday, 7 July 2025, the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) welcomed the publication of Dr Penny Dash’s Review of patient safety across the health and care landscape and its clear recognition of the critical importance of raising quality and safety standards in adult social care.
The review calls for a national strategy for quality in adult social care, underpinned by clear evidence. Dr Dash highlights long-standing concerns about the lack of consistency in how care is assessed, the absence of clear outcome metrics in social care, and a missed opportunity to embed innovation and best practice across the system. Her review recognises SCIE’s role, alongside the CQC, in helping lead the way in defining and supporting quality in adult social care.
This review couldn’t be clearer: we need a national strategy for quality in social care, one that both assures quality and enables improvement. Too often, excellence is localised and fleeting. What we need is a sustainable, system-wide commitment to safe, high-quality care that everyone can rely on.
SCIE stands ready to support the government’s reform ambitions, including the proposed National Care Service and the work of the Casey Commission. We know what good looks like. We’ve seen it. Our job now is to help the sector build on it, scale it, and make it stick.
We also welcome the review’s recognition of the central role culture plays in supporting safety, especially in safeguarding. A positive, values-driven culture isn’t a ‘nice to have’. It’s the foundation of effective, dignified care.
If we want better outcomes, we need better data, clearer standards, and a shared language for quality. But most of all, we need the will and the leadership to make that vision real. This review is a timely reminder of what’s at stake, and what’s possible.
Kathryn Marsden OBE (formerly Kathryn Smith)
Chief Executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE)
SCIE will continue to provide leadership in evidence-building, innovation, and best practice as the sector prepares for significant national reform.
About SCIE
The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) improves the lives of people of all ages by co-producing, sharing, and supporting the use of the best available knowledge and evidence about what works in practice. We are a leading independent social care charity working with organisations that support adults, families and children across the UK.
If you have any questions regarding this submission, please do not hesitate to contact Molly Pennington, Press and Media Relations Officer, at molly.pennington@scie.org.uk