Dr Penelope Dash published an interim report of her review into the operational effectiveness of CQC at the end of July. The purpose of the review was to examine the suitability of CQC’s new single assessment framework methodology for inspections and ratings of health and care providers. In it, Dr Dash identified a number of internal failings that are hampering our ability to effectively fulfil our purpose.
These fall into five areas, including: our operational performance; IT challenges with the provider portal and regulatory platform; the loss of credibility within the sectors we regulate; concerns around the single assessment framework; and a lack of clarity over how ratings are calculated, including ratings from previous inspections being used to calculate a current rating.
We have accepted these findings, and the recommendations Dr Dash has made, in full. Many of these align with areas we have already prioritised as part of our work to restore trust with providers and the public. We know that people have been raising their concerns around our approach for some time, and we are sorry that we have not properly listened to these voices.
We have committed to listening better, working together more collaboratively and being honest about what we have got wrong. Our priorities now are to get back on track. Kate Terroni, our interim Chief Executive, has set out her plans to achieve this, detailing our urgent and immediate actions.
Improve how we are using our regulatory approach
Firstly, we will increase and improve the support and guidance for providers on our regulatory approach. We will also increase the number of assessments and inspections we are carrying out. We will share more details on how we plan to do this, soon. In the meantime, we have already increased the number of people working in registration and we are working to get to any outstanding registration applications as soon as possible. Providers should soon start to see improvements in registration waiting times.
Improve our provider portal
The interim report highlighted that the deployment of our new provider portal resulted in ‘significant problems’ for users. We accept that these issues may mean that some providers are still not having a good experience. We will continue working with providers to identify what we can do to improve the portal and to design solutions together.
Rethink our ways of working
Lastly, the interim report detailed that relationship building between our inspectors and senior members of the health and social care sectors ‘has been largely lost’. To overcome this, we will be testing a new approach to relationship management that enables a closer and more consistent contact point for providers, and we will further develop this in partnership with them.
Moving forwards
We have listened to providers in recent weeks and confirm our intention to work with them, people who use services and our colleagues to develop a new CQC handbook for all providers. We will work together to shape this. So far, we have heard that this handbook needs to explain what you can expect from an inspection, what customer services standards you should expect from CQC and how we can, together, articulate our shared understanding of what ‘Good’ looks like for different service types.
Our regular engagement with colleagues in adult social care trade associations continues, and the feedback and insights we receive from their members is helping to shape our short- and long-term priorities. We will share details soon of how providers can get involved in this and other elements of our work.
Mary Cridge is Director of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
Email: [email protected]
X: @CQCProf
How do you hope that the regulator will work with providers to resolve some of the issues identified in the interim report? Visit www.caremanegementmatters.co.uk and leave a comment on this article or join the conversation to share your thoughts.