The existing system for regulating and overseeing patient safety in England is to be transformed, according to the country’s health secretary, Wes Streeting. A review is set to be conducted across six principal organisations. Streeting claims the current process is “overly complex”. He hopes that overhauling the structure will allow the government to reduce poor performance and ensure that patients have faith in the rating system. While patient safety must be at the core of a healthy NHS, there are still concerns about how it operates, particularly within the Care Quality Commission (CQC), which recently underwent an interim review. The CQC is responsible for assessing services across the sectors of healthcare and social care. The findings stated that the CQC was failing. The new system is expected to focus on key services such as GPs, social care, and hospitals.
Since then, a new CEO, Sir Julian Hartley, has been appointed at the CQC. Hartley leads NHS Providers which represents senior health professionals. The extensive review will also include the National Guardian’s Office, Healthwatch England, NHS Resolution, and the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, in addition to the existing CQC. It aims to streamline how these bodies work collectively to deliver its findings to the government’s forthcoming 10-year NHS plan in the spring of 2022.
Streeting insists that an incredibly complicated system of healthcare oversight compromises patient safety, which is unacceptable. He vowed to revamp the system to make it more efficient. The latest announcement coincides with the publication of Dr Penny Dash’s final report on the CQC review. Dash was the lead investigator in inspecting the CQC review. She stated that the CQC was failing and needed to refocus on individual sectors such as GPs, hospitals, and social care. The decision is to discard the original integrated-care systems and create a simplified sector-specific structure focusing on regional inspection.
Matthew Taylor, of the NHS Confideration, announced today that the restructuring was long overdue and “not fit for purpose” for far too long. The CQC responded to the report by making several rapid changes, including improvements to the overall assessment process. It announced that it is introducing three new chief inspectors to inspect hospitals, GP surgeries, and adult social care. The CQC chair, Ian Dilks, said, ”We are committed to rebuilding trust in CQC’s regulation and are taking action to make sure we have the right structure, processes, and technology in place”. There are currently no plans to replace the current ranking system; inadequate, requires improvement, good, and outstanding
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