London (Parliament Politics Magazine) – The health watchdog has halted its inspections of local NHS authorities after an examination found significant failings.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) will cease its assessments of England’s integrated care systems (ICS), which manage NHS services across 42 local areas, for six months, to concentrate on its backlog of hospital and care home inspections.
A study by Dr Penny Dash, a local NHS chair, into the CQC’s failings, will outline seven recommendations to enhance, including stopping ICS reviews. Wes Streeting, the Health Secretary, expressed patient safety must be “overhauled” as he called for a further review. He has now requested Dr Dash to look into the “overly complex system” that currently holds health services in England.
What are the implications of an “overly complex system”?
There are currently six different organisations committed to patient safety that make recommendations for modifications to the NHS. Officials expressed recent inquiries such as into the infected blood scandal had underscored how multiple organisations had formed a complicated system and a lack of clear leadership.
Mr Streeting expressed patient safety was “the bedrock of a healthy NHS” and that the administration was “taking steps to improve the CQC, to root out poor implementation and ensure patients can have faith in its ratings once again”. This Government will never turn a blind eye to failure,” he said. “An overly complex system of healthcare regulation and oversight is no good for patients or providers. We will repair the system to make it useful and efficient, to protect patient protection.”
How long have some facilities gone without inspections?
Dr Dash’s final report into the CQC quoted her interim findings, which discovered hospitals and care homes left uninspected for up to 10 years, if at all. The report left Mr Streeting “stunned” as he expressed that the regulator was “not fit for purpose” in July. The review was communicated to hospital inspectors who had declared to have never been inside a hospital, and a care home inspector who proclaimed never to have met a person with dementia.