The people who stay after the report.

Begin with the service’s story

A consultant arriving at a care service enters a working community. There are people who live there or receive its support, staff carrying knowledge that may never reach a board paper, families with questions and a manager trying to hold the whole picture together. The first useful task is to understand that community.

That is the starting point Carley Rawlinson and Richie O’Keeffe describe for Novaspec. Their 2026 brochure sets out a practice of meeting managers, walking the floor, hearing from staff across shifts and listening to people receiving care and their families before recommending change. ^[1]

The name expresses that purpose. Nova represents renewal and fresh thinking; spec stands for clarity, standards and a focused view of quality. The founders connect those ideas with a consultancy that first understands what good care should mean in the particular service. ^[1]

The distinction matters to the providers reading our recent State of Care investigation. Identifying a concern is only part of the work. A recommendation becomes useful when someone understands how it will fit the service, what the team needs to carry it out and how its effects will be checked.

The founders also describe working with services that are doing well, including providers seeking greater consistency, stronger leadership or a better experience for the people they support. Their starting point is an honest understanding of the service and what it wants to achieve. ^[1]

Carley’s clinical and leadership experience

Carley is a registered mental health nurse with more than eighteen years in clinical practice and fifteen years in health and social care leadership. Her experience includes registered manager, compliance, head of operations and director roles. ^[1]

Her background connects leadership decisions with the work of a shift team. A manager may agree an action plan while still needing time, training, systems or help with a difficult conversation before the team can put it into practice.

Novaspec describes Carley’s experience of CQC enforcement, including Notices of Proposal and Notices of Decision, alongside work developing training materials for skillsforwork, part of Agora Business Publications. Her contribution combines regulatory and clinical understanding with the task of making complex expectations usable for staff. ^[1]

In the programme, that experience opens a useful line of enquiry: what should leaders ask when a review identifies a problem, and what support does a team need after the finding has been written down? It is a question we return to in the governance feature.

Richie’s first conversation with a provider

Richie brings a different, complementary background: eleven years in health and social care, following a 21-year career in the fitness sector, with experience in finance and business administration and a working knowledge of health and safety regulation. ^[1]

His role begins with directors, owners and senior leaders: understanding their pressures, goals and service culture, then helping allocate the right consultant. Two providers may ask for a mock inspection while needing quite different support afterwards.

A service may need help establishing whether its audits describe current practice. Another may have clear findings but need confidence and capacity to implement the plan. A growing organisation may need a more consistent view across locations. The conversation needs enough detail to distinguish those situations.

Richie’s role connects understanding the requirement with organising the right support. The provider should know who its consultant is, how the work has been matched to its needs and how the founders remain involved as the relationship develops. ^[1]

What the values mean in practice

Novaspec’s three guiding words are “Empower. Inspire. Transform.” Its brochure links empowerment with staff knowledge and confidence, inspiration with leading by example, and transformation with improvements that people continue to experience after the consultant has left. ^[1]

Staff need to understand why a change is proposed and be able to raise difficulties. A review should recognise existing strengths and leave people better equipped to do the work. Those are practical ways to recognise the values behind the approach.

Calm, kind feedback sits alongside clear accountability. Novaspec describes agreed priorities, an owner for each action, realistic timescales and scheduled reviews. Where action is urgent, the work needs pace and clear communication so the team can respond. ^[1]

Governance depends on what leaders learn from daily care. Staff development needs opportunities to put learning into practice. Evidence of improvement should include the experience of the person receiving support. These questions connect the founders’ story with our wider reporting.

Why this matters for care leaders now

CQC’s October State of Care report brings leadership, governance and accountability into sharp focus. The findings describe assessed services and need to be read with their evidence limits. For a provider, the practical question is how oversight helps the team deliver care that is consistent and personal. ^[2][3]

Earlier research by The King’s Fund, published in April through its partnership with CQC, identified compassionate and inclusive leadership, person-centred care and learning embedded in practice among its principles for outstanding care. The work combined a literature review, interviews and workshops across care settings. ^[14]

For a provider considering outside support, those principles suggest useful questions. How will the consultant hear from the people receiving care? Will staff be involved in understanding a problem? What will managers learn, and who will help them turn that learning into a change that holds?

Novaspec’s contribution to this programme begins with its answers about the working relationship: get to know the service, recognise strengths, agree priorities and stay alongside the people implementing them. The following features explore how that approach can inform governance, staff development, rights and dementia care. ^[1]

The work after the first visit

Novaspec describes giving feedback in person, followed by a written report and a prioritised plan shaped with the provider. Implementation can involve training, mentoring, new systems and follow-up visits. The founders hold dedicated check-ins with the consultant and the organisation’s designated contact. ^[1]

Its subscription model starts with a mock inspection and includes a monthly visit to validate the action plan. One-off reviews and urgent support are also described. The appropriate arrangement depends on the service and the work agreed; readers should confirm scope, availability and terms directly with the team.

A provider can ask about the whole working relationship: time spent understanding the service, how the consultant is selected, support between visits and when Carley or Richie becomes involved in an unresolved concern. Those details make the commitment to staying alongside a team concrete.

The first conversation can be specific. What do we need to understand? Which people should be heard? What needs attention first? Who will help carry out the changes, and when will we look together at whether they have worked?