14.03.14
Priority Bands for hospital inspection ‘refreshed’ by CQC
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published its latest Intelligent Monitoring (IM) reports for acute and specialist trusts in England.
The analysis – based on over 150 indicators, including information from the NHS staff survey, the national inpatient survey, emergency readmissions and concerns raised by staff in trusts –underpins CQC’s new approach to regulation, helping it decide where to prioritise its hospital inspections.
For each trust, CQC has published a ‘Priority Band for Inspection’ alongside individual analysis reports, which it has just refreshed. Trusts are assigned a priority band from one to six, with the exception of trusts that have recently been inspected, as they have already been prioritised.
Professor Sir Mike Richards, chief inspector of hospitals, said: “In the first 18 inspections, the hospitals in band one, the higher risk band, tended to deliver poorer care for patients.
“This shows how our IM tool is a good indicator of where problems are likely to be. However, this has not been universal. We must be mindful that indicators are just that, indicators, and are not judgements of quality.
“For example, indicators placed Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust in a higher potential risk band in 2013, but our inspection assured us that the quality of care the trust provided was good.”
CQC has continued to work with hospitals and other partners to improve the way this information is calculated and presented. The key improvements to IM in the latest refresh are:
• Information has been added from the national maternity survey.
• Information has been added from the Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit.
• Updated results from the NHS staff survey published in February have been added.
• The whistleblowing indicator now only includes ‘current’ cases.
• Changes to the indicators used from the Sentinel Stroke National Audit.
CQC added that the Priority Bands for Inspection are updated quarterly.
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