Leader in Adult Care

A Leader in Adult Care manages community or residential based services. The role has a large element of leadership, with responsibility to ensure the service is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. They ensure regulatory compliance of the care given and take responsibility for the values and training of staff within established standards and regulations.

Leaders in Adult Care may work in residential or nursing homes, domiciliary care, community day centres, a person’s own home or some clinical healthcare settings. The role of Leader in Adult Care in this standard also covers Personal Assistants, who operate in a management role but may only work directly for one individual who needs support and/or care services.

Typical job titles include registered, assistant, deputy, unit or service manager.

Gateway Requirements

The decision to take an apprentice through gateway is made between the employer, training provider and apprentice, typically after 18 months on-programme. The apprentice must have completed all on-programme elements before they enter gateway, including completion of the Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Adult Care and Level 2 English and Maths.

End-point Assessment

EPA consists of two discrete assessment methods. These can be delivered in any order – via remote assessment – and are weighted equally in their contribution to the overall EPA grade.

AssessmentMethod	Weighting	Duration	To achieve a Pass	To achieve a Distinction
Observation of Leadership	50%	Maximum 60 minutes for observation, plus 30 minutes of post-observation questioning	All of the Pass criteria must be met 100%	N/A
Professional discussion underpinned by a portfolio of evidence	50%	90 minutes	All of the Pass criteria must be met 100%	In addition to meeting the pass criteria, the apprentice must meet at least 19 of the distinction criteria

A pass is gained by achieving pass criteria for all behaviours, knowledge and skills.  A distinction is gained by successfully achieving all pass criteria and through meeting at least 19 of the 24 distinction criteria within the professional discussion.

Observation

This must include the ability to demonstrate the apprentices’ skills, behaviours and leadership to external/internal stakeholders. The apprentice must lead the observed activity and will have prepared for this after the gateway in agreement with the employer and Skillsfirst Assess. The apprentice will be given a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of four weeks to prepare for this activity following the gateway. Apprentices must ensure that the appropriate organisational staff are present and are notified in advance of the activity. Any preparatory documentation/presentation should be mapped against the required KSBs and should be shared with Skillsfirst Assess seven days before the observation via our online portal (SEPA).

Professional Discussion

The professional discussion is an in-depth, two-way discussion between the apprentice and the independent end-point assessor (IEA). The professional discussion must take 90 minutes (+10% at the discretion of the IEA) to allow the apprentice to finish their last point. The room should be quiet and free from distraction.

The IEA will ensure that a minimum of one question is asked for each of the KSB groups that are mapped to this assessment method.

Feedback

The IEA will not provide the apprentice (or their manager) with a preliminary grade, as it will be subject to Skillsfirst internal quality assurance processes. Skillsfirst will aim to confirm the apprentice’s final and overall grade approximately 10 working days after the last assessment.

Certification

Once moderation is complete and the apprentice has successfully completed all EPA methods, Skillsfirst will activate certification through the Apprenticeship assessment service. Certificates will be sent directly to the employer.

You can download a copy of the information on this page here

A link to the Leader in Adult Care standards page can be found here