INSPECTIONS by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) cannot be trusted, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said today, suggesting that England’s health and social care regulator is “not fit for purpose” and needs “radical reform.”
An independent review identified “significant internal failings” affecting the commission’s ability to identify poor performance at hospitals, care homes and GP practices.
Responding to the findings, Mr Streeting said he had not anticipated the regulator would have “failed to such an extent,” adding that members of the public looking at ratings on the website should “take them with a pinch of salt.”
He said: “I never expected to be told that one in five health and care providers had not received a rating, that some health and care providers have not been inspected for a decade, that some of those ratings are effectively manufactured and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historic ratings and judgments. I am absolutely appalled.”
The review, led by North West London Integrated Care Board chairwoman Dr Penny Dash, found some organisations had not been reinspected for several years, with the oldest rating for an NHS hospital dating from more than 10 years ago, while the oldest for a social care provider was from 2015.
The Department of Health and Social Care announced immediate steps to restore public confidence in the CQC, which is appointing Professor Sir Mike Richards, a former hospital physician and its first chief inspector of hospitals, to review its assessment framework.
Progress will be monitored over the summer and the full independent report will be published in autumn, it added.
Keep Our NHS Public co-chairman Dr Tony O’Sullivan said: “There are similarities between the inadequacies of the CQC and education’s Ofsted.
“Health, care and education’s services urgently need boosted staff support and resources to improve morale.
“For any of the 90,000 services to be inspected by someone with no prior experience of that service is insulting and undermining.
“Services desperately need safer staff levels, buildings and equipment to deliver improvements, not the single word or phrase judgments that further demoralise staff rather than improve care.”
CQC interim chief executive Kate Terroni said: “We accept in full the findings and recommendations in this interim review, which identifies clear areas where improvement is urgently needed.”
