Which resident field should you use for CQC statutory notifications

I was recently asked if CareHQ provides a unique code that is suitable for identifying a resident when submitting a CQC statutory notification. In this article we'll explain which field we recommend you use and why.

What are the requirements for the resident code?

Point 5 in the Statutory notifications guidance (PDF) provided by the CQC describes the reasons they require residents to be identified by a unique code and what the requirements are for that code, in summary:

• Submitting a notification that includes confidential information such as a person's name or any personally identifiable information (PII) may contravene the Data Protection Act 1998.
• The Data Protection Act requires that information about people is only stored when necessary and under appropriate security arrangements. Therefore the CQC asks that a unique identifier or code is provided rather than a name when giving information about a person in a notification.
• You can allocate a code to each person who uses your service and use this code for statutory notifications.
• You must keep information about who these codes refer to safe and secure, in case the CQC needs to know more about a notified event.
• It is up to you as the care provider to decide the format of these codes, but any code must not easily identify the person (e.g. using their room number or date of birth).

Which resident field should you use?

There are currently three unique Id fields for residents in CareHQ; each is automatically generated when a resident record is created. These are:

• Id (Recommended) This is an immutable (cannot be changed) 24 character code that is unique not only to the resident record but also for any data record on CareHQ. It is highly portable (e.g. will remain unique if you migrate to another CRM system) and can be considered globally unique for all practical purposes.
• Ref(erence) This is a traditional auto-incrementing code (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... 101). It is guaranteed to be unique to the resident record and provides a shorter, more memorable alternative to the resident's Id. Whilst a resident's reference cannot be changed within the CareHQ application, it can be changed by an account owner as part of a data import.
• Account code (not suitable) The account code is a unique automatically generated code that is typically used for integration with accounts/finance applications. However, it is unsuitable because by default it contains the initials of the resident and it can be changed by users from within CareHQ.

We therefore recommend using the Id field as the resident code for CQC notifications due to the fact that it meets all the requirements set out by the CQC, is immutable, and is portable should you decide to migrate to another CRM application in the future.