At the Social Care Standards Authority, we believe firmly in the importance of communicating with all stakeholders and people involved in the social welfare sector; people administering and providing the services, professionals working within these services, people making use of them and their relatives. Through communication we can ensure that the service providers’ services are of the required quality and homogenous in their execution for all who make use of them.

We maintain communication through various means. Different collaborative platforms have been established by the Authority for various sectors that we regulate, with regular meetings held throughout the year to promote discussion and networking with the service providers as well as between themselves. We also strive to inspire service providers by communicating with them directly in case of any difficulties.

We also focus on our communication with people who make use of social welfare services in Malta and with their relatives, and encourage them to contact us through our Quality Assurance Office should they wish to provide feedback on a social welfare service they used. The feedback we receive can be both positive and negative and we encourage everyone who wants to let us know about services they received to talk to us.

If we receive feedback which is negative in nature and warrants further investigation, the details are passed on to the Inspectorate Office within the Authority, who will dispatch a team to assess the details of the feedback at the service concerned. If it is deemed necessary, the Licensing Office within the Authority will issue a set of recommendations to the service provider to rectify any issues uncovered during the assessment. The service provider would need to adhere to those recommendations to make sure they are compliant with the standards set in that social welfare sector.

During the first 10 months of this year, the Quality Assurance Office received 70 feedback cases. The Inspectorate Office performed over 900 inspections across all social welfare services in Malta, a number of which were instigated due to feedback received by the Authority. More than 360 inspections were carried out on services for older persons.

We take action where it is due because we believe that all members of society deserve the best quality in the services they require, particularly vulnerable persons in our society for whom these services are vital in their day to day life.

This is why I am writing this today. I want to encourage people who have been impacted by any service to contact us. Whether you feel you have been wronged or want to sing the praises of someone (a carer, social worker, manager, or someone else) who has helped you during a difficult period in your life, we want to listen to your message and make sure that it does not go unheard.

The Social Care Standards Authority can be contacted through various channels. We get most of our feedback through phone calls on our number 25494345, but people can also contact us via email on feedback.scsa@gov.mt or through our website on www.scsa.gov.mt. We are also present on all major social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – as @scsamt.

Matthew Vella is Chief Executive Officer at the Social Care Standards Authority.