Care regulator chief steps down
pharmafile | February 24, 2012 | News story | Sales and Marketing | CQC, Cynthia Bower, Mid Staffs, reforms
The head of the Care Quality Commission Cynthia Bower has resigned from her post, amid growing pressure from the government.
Bower was head of the CQC during the Winterbourne View care home scandal, in which staff were alleged to have abused patients with learning difficulties.
The CQC has also been criticised during the public inquiry into the failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust.
It is estimated that around 1,200 patients died at Stafford Hospital between 2005 and 2009 due to serious failings in care and neglect from staff.
Criticism for Mid Staffs has landed on Bower’s shoulders as she was head of West Midlands strategic health authority, the body responsible for the hospital during the scandal.
This criticism has followed her to the CQC, with recent events at Winterbourne only compounding the negative view of her, and the Commission.
Bower said: “After almost four years leading CQC, I feel that it is now time to move on”.
Government report criticises the CQC
Her resignation comes in the same week the Department of Health released its capability report on the CQC. This report was focused on the future capability of the Commission, but also looked back at its failings.
The report acknowledged that the CQC has faced operational and strategic difficulties.
“Delays to provider registration, shortcomings in compliance activity and, at times, a negative public profile have seriously challenged public confidence in its role,” it said.
“Even so, CQC could have done more to manage operational risks.”
The CQC was established in 2009 and brought together three different organisations, whilst bringing in 21,000 providers into the new regulatory regime and carrying out over 14,000 compliance inspections and reviews.
But the DH said its review: “Found that the scale of this task had been underestimated by the CQC and the Department, and more could have been done to manage risks during the early years of the organisation’s operation.”
The review makes 23 recommendations on how the CQC should improve, saying that the CQC should ‘raise its game’, and work more closely with other regulators.
Resignation ‘the right decision’
Kay Sheldon, a current CQC board member, said that Bower’s decision was ‘the right decision,’ but added that she “should have left before now given the serious and ongoing problems the organisation has faced”.
She added: “The persistent failure to address, and at times acknowledge, the problems needs to be tackled if we are to achieve an effective and sustainable regulator that functions in the interest of patients and the public.”
This comes at a bad time for the government, which is battling to push through its radical reform of the NHS.
Health secretary Andrew Lansley is under considerable pressure to release a risk register by the Department of Health relating to his reforms.
There is concern that the restructuring of the NHS could put patients at risk, but the government is blocking attempts to have the register released.
The government will not want to have another Winterbourne or Mid Staffs on its hands, and it will have to go a long way to convince the public that its reforms would not increase the risk of this happening again.
Ben Adams
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