09.07.20
CQC carrying out rapid reviews to prepare for future pressures
In an effort to help health and social care service providers best learn from the experience of responding to coronavirus around the UK, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is carrying out a series of rapid reviews into how providers are working collaboratively in local areas.
These Provider Collaboration Reviews (PCRs) will focus on 11 Integrated Care System (ICS) or Sustainability and Transformation Partnership (STP) areas.
The reviews aim to support providers across systems by sharing learning, helping drive improvements and ensure preparedness for future pressures on local health and care systems.
In their report Beyond Barriers: How older people move between health and social care in England, the CQC note collaboration between health and care services in a system can achieve better outcomes for people when they work together.
To carry out the reviews, the CQC will utilise data it holds and undertake conversations with providers and leaders from the ICS and STP areas. It will also include the experiences of people who use the services being reviewed.
The CQC’s ambition is to look at provider collaboration in all ICS and STP areas, with the first phase set to take place between July and August and see reviews carried out in:
- Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes ICS
- Norfolk and Waveney STP
- The Black Country and West Birmingham STP
- Lincolnshire STP
- North East and North Cumbria ICS
- Lancashire and South Cumbria ICS
- Frimley Health and Care ICS
- Sussex Health and Care Partnership ICS
- North West London STP
- One Gloucestershire ICS
- Devon STP
The CQC reviews will involve understanding the journey for people with and without coronavirus across health and social care providers within each area. In particular, there will be a focus on the interface between health and adult social care for the over-65 population group.
Rosie Benneyworth, Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care, said: “The speed and scale of the response required by the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the benefits to services and the people who use them of creativity and innovation through collaborative approaches.
“Responses to the pandemic have offered opportunities for partnership working, ensuring shared efforts to avoid fragmentation and drive best experiences and outcomes for those accessing care within the system.
“These reviews will help identify where provider collaboration has worked well to the benefit of people who use services. Sharing that learning will help drive further improvements across systems.”
Teams carrying out the reviews will feedback findings to areas following each review to help them plan ahead. Themes identified from the 11 reviews will be reported in September as part of the CQC’s Covid Insight report and in October in their State of Care report.