16.09.14
Hospitals face legal requirement to display CQC ‘scores on doors’
Hospitals, care homes and GP surgeries could be legally required to ‘prominently’ display their Care Quality Commission (CQC) service ratings from April 2015.
Under new proposals from the Department of Health, it has been suggested that the CQC rating must be clearly visible, such as in waiting rooms or entrances, and must be published on the provider's website with a link to the inspection report.
Failure to comply could result in a £500 fine for the provider, with the CQC also able to issue a £100 penalty notice in lieu of prosecution.
The proposals form part of the DH’s consultation ‘Placing a legal requirement on registered providers to display the rating published by the CQC’, which care minister Norman Lamb believes will significantly help boost transparency in the health sector.
He said: “I am sure that providers who are awarded a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating by CQC, will want to highlight their achievement. Providers who receive a ‘requires improvement’ or ‘inadequate’ rating are less likely to wish to publicise this fact.
“This is why we want to place a clear legal requirement on providers to display the rating awarded by CQC, to ensure that this clear assessment of provider quality is accessible to the people when they use services.”
Responding to the consultation, Dr Mark Porter, chair of BMA Council, added that while transparency and quality assurance are vitally important, having a single rating for a wide variety of services is not only “overly simplistic”, it runs the risk of being “actively misleading” for patients.
“Hospitals and GP surgeries deliver such an array of complex services it's neither possible, nor desirable, to reduce them all to a single score,” he said. “Greater openness and transparency on the quality of care are key but a crude 'score on the door' system is not the best way to deliver this.”
From October, CQC will begin formally rating all registered NHS hospital trusts, NHS foundation trusts, GPs, independent hospitals and adult social care services. So far this year the regulator has been developing a more specialised and rigorous system of monitoring and inspection to ensure that ratings are based on the best available evidence.
But the government argues these ratings will be of limited use if the people using services do not see them. “Although the ratings will all be published on CQC’s website, not everyone researches the performance of their hospital, care home or GP online,” the DH added.
David Behan, CQC chief executive, said: “People who use health and care services want to know that they are safe and of high quality. When we rate services, we think it is important that the public know what our judgement is.
“While we publish all ratings on our website, we believe this should go further. Care homes, hospitals and GPs should make our judgements of their services readily available to the public. Not everyone will be able to research this for themselves online.”
He added that he looks forward to hearing the responses of the public and providers to these proposals, and working with the DH on them.
Matt Tee, chief operating officer of the NHS Confederation, which represents all organisations that commission and provide NHS services, said: “We support greater transparency but it needs to be meaningful in helping people make decisions about their care, and not add unnecessary bureaucratic burdens on our members.”
The consultation will run for four weeks, closing on 13 October 2014. To view the consultation, click here.
Tell us what you think – have your say below or email [email protected]