News

CQC missing targets for publishing timely reports across all areas

None of the CQC directorates succeeded in publishing their inspection reports for health and care services on time in quarter 2 of this year.

The CQC’s quarter 2 performance report, published ahead of its board meeting on Monday, says that no directorate is meeting its commitments covering the timeliness of published inspection reports.

For hospitals, less than a fifth of reports on trusts spanning fewer than three core services and 31% of reports on trusts with more than three services were published within 50 working days.

Both of these figures fell significantly short of a target of 70%, set to increase to 90% in quarter 3.

However, they did represent growth from the previous quarter, when just 4% of reports on trusts with less than three services, and none of those on trusts with more than three, were published.

The inspectorate said it was taking a number of measures to address the issue, including introducing a new report template from the next quarter, developing active tracking software and improving the flow of quality assurance process.

For primary medical services, which have the same 70% target, 60% were published within the timeframe – a fall from 66% in the previous quarter.

But the CQC said inspections had been held back by implementing a new factual accuracy review process, and difficulty resolving issues related to publishing ratings for urgent care services.

It revealed that it would introduce changes including producing an illustrative template for inspectors, revised criteria for the quality assurance process, increasing national panels to two a week and publishing reports daily rather than weekly.

For adult social care, 80% of reports were published within 50 days against a target of 90%, albeit this was an increase from 77% in quarter 1.

The CQC said this directorate had implemented a number of measures to improve its programme, including allowing inspection managers to validate reports locally, providing report writing training for all inspectors, and developing internal management indicators within the report writing process.

Separately, no directorates were meeting the targets for registration of providers, although the CQC attributed this to a 12% increase in registration activity.

Its report also showed that 23% of the 203 primary care services found to be in breach of their licence for more than four quarters had not been inspected, or had an inspection planned for over a year away.

Almost 1,600 social care locations were in breach for more than four quarters, of which 193 (or 12%) had not been inspected or had an inspection planned for over a year away.

However, the report said the hospitals directorate had completed its inspection ratings programme for all trusts and was on track to do so for independent providers, and social care and primary services were also on track to complete their programmes.

Despite timeliness failings, the inspections were rated helpful by providers, with 87% of social care providers, 61% of primary medical services and 90% of hospitals saying the CQC supported them in improving their services.

Have you got a story to tell? Would you like to become an NHE columnist? If so, click here.