The CQC (Care Quality Commission) state on their website
“We make sure health and social care
services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care
and we encourage them to improve.”
They are the ‘regulators’ who monitor, inspect and regulate
services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety and
they publish what they find, including performance ratings to help people
choose care.
Like Ofsted in its relation to education, the CQC has a
remit across all social care – providers and statutory commissioners.
Not so long ago we had the Healthcare Commission which was
a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department of Health. The Healthcare Commission was set up to
promote and drive improvement in the quality of health care and public health
in England and Wales in 2004. It aimed
to achieve this by becoming an authoritative and trusted source of information
by ensuring that this information is used to drive improvement. It was abolished in 2009 and its
responsibilities in England broadly subsumed by the Care Quality Commission.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an executive non-departmental public body
of the Department of Health. It was
established in 2009 to regulate and inspect health and social care services in
England. It was formed from 3
predecessor organisations
·
The Health Care
Commission
·
Commission for Social
Care Inspection (CSCI)
·
Mental Health Act
Commission (MHAC)
The CQC's stated role is to make sure that hospitals, care
homes, dental and general practices and other care services in England provide
people with safe, effective and high-quality care, and to encourage them to
improve. It carries out this role through checks it carries out during the
registration process all new care services must complete, inspections and
monitoring of a range of data sources that can indicate problems with services.
Part of the CQC’s
remit is protecting the interests of people whose rights have been restricted
under the Mental Health Act (MHA).
It is also imperative to remember that non-departmental
public body (NDPBs) are not an integral part of any government department and
carry out their work at arm's length from ministers. In the CQC’s bio its
classed as an Execitive this means – they usually deliver a particular public
service and are overseen by a board rather than ministers. Appointments are
made by ministers following the Code of Practice of the Commissioner for Public
Appointments.
They employ their own staff and are allocated their own budgets.
But no one seems to monitor or regulate them. What is more disturbing is that even the
inspectors employed to monitor and inspect services seem to be all working from
different worksheets.
It will not surprise anyone therefore that inspectors are
not consistent in their Reports and Inspections.
By simply looking on their website I found two Inspections from
two ends of the Country, both Services are “Celebrated” as Leaders in their Field,
both services work with dementia care and both reports are near identical
except for 1 is a charity and the other a fairly new organisation having only
been operational for a year. However, 1
is rated as Outstanding by the CQC and the other merely Good!
This is a clear demonstration of inconsistency within the
CQC.
In a 3rd report on a service rated as Good, I
found in the Summary of Findings that the Service was described as Safe and
rated Good for “Is the Service Safe”.
Yet further in the report the Inspector noted that some Services users
were left in Bed over 8 hours a day and with no drink or means to hydrate – how
then is this safe? How then can this Inspector honestly rate the Safety of this
Service as Good?
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