Editorial Wednesday 9 January 2013: A modest proposal following the Health Select Committee's new CQC report
The Health Select Committee's new report on the Care Quality Commission pulls fewer punches than an un-bribed boxer, stating that even though "the CQC has developed a much keener focus on patient safety and has a better appreciation of what it exists to do (not much of an achievement) ... we remain to be convinced that the CQC has successfully defined its core purpose.
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"The Committee concluded that the CQC’s primary focus should be on ensuring that the essential standards it enforces can be interpreted by the public as a guarantee of acceptable standards in care. We do not believe that the CQC’s essential standards in their current form succeed in this objective. As a result, patients, residents and relatives do not have confidence in the CQC’s standards or the outcomes of inspections".
It comes as zero surprise to anyone that the CQC is not a happy ship. Neither was the Healthcare Commission. Barbara Young probably never showed off her political acumen more sharply than when she exited as CQC chair, alas making room for Dame Jo Williams, whose emetic performance giving evidence to the select committee I described here.
The report also nails passivity on the CQC's part, outlining "the CQC must be far more diligent in communicating the outcomes of inspections, especially to residents in social care and their immediate family. Residents of care homes and their relatives are entitled to be made aware of how their home performs in inspection. Expecting residents or relatives to scour the CQC website for inspection reports or chance upon a local newspaper report is, in our view, an insufficient communication strategy".
I have previously written about the insufficiency of regulation, and suggested only partly in jest that given our libel laws, the budget of regulators might usefully be given to fund a subsidy to local media above a certain quality threshold, and pay a few people to read them.
I have a new suggestion, and it is to do with addressing care quality through the prism of complaints.
Why, given due caveats about patient confidentiality, shoudn't all providers of NHS-funded care be made to publish online all their complaints - and the actions and changes taken in response and make them open to registered comments (valid email address required)?