Care Quality Commission (CQC) new inspection regime

Professor Sir Mike Richards the new chief inspector of hospitals has announced that from now on CQC will be beefing up its inspections – bigger teams (perhaps 20), longer inspections (perhaps a week) and a mix of real health professionals and trained members of the public. All acute hospitals will be inspected by the end of 2015.

The first step will be trial inspections starting soon of 18 hospitals selected to represent different levels of ‘risk’, There will be 6 ‘low’ risk, 6 ‘high’ risk and 6 with a ‘variety of risks between’. The Royal Surrey will be one of them being in the middle category so an inspection in the coming months can be expected.

Results will be published and every hospital will be given a rating of ‘outstanding; good; require improvement; or inadequate’. I can’t say I’m in favour of such a broad single rating – hospitals are far more complex than hotels and my fear is that a good overall rating will hide aspects which are not so good but leave the public believing everything is grand. However we will see – the proof is in the pudding!