CQC embroiled in ‘cover up’ row
pharmafile | June 20, 2013 | News story | Sales and Marketing | Mid Staffs, NHS. CQC, UHMB
The organisation responsible for inspecting health and care standards in the NHS is at the centre of a flaming political row over its failure to correctly oversee issues of mother and baby mortality at a Cumbrian hospital.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a report it commissioned from Grant Thornton to look into its own activities in relation to University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust (UHMB).
The report – leaked in advance to the media – reveals “just how poor the CQC’s oversight of UHMB was in 2010” and says there was a cover-up of an earlier, internal report into its failings – something health secretary Jeremy Hunt called ‘completely unacceptable’.
Grant Thornton said it found evidence ‘of the apparently deliberate suppression’ of an internal CQC report which was commissioned by senior management in October 2011, and which was critical of CQC’s performance over UHMB.
The allegation has been denied by the person alleged to have given an instruction to delete this report, the investigator said.
Scandals have been something of a stock in trade for the health service this year: in February, on what NHS leaders called a ‘sad and shameful day’ for the NHS, the Department of Health said there would be “a renewed focus on putting patients at the centre of everything we do” in the light of the final report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry.
The report’s author, Robert Francis QC, made 290 recommendations to bring about a ‘fundamental culture change’ in the NHS after finding patients at Stafford Hospital were subjected to ‘appalling and unnecessary suffering’ there.
In a statement to the House of Commons yesterday, Hunt said: “As we saw with Mid Staffs, a culture in the NHS had been allowed to develop where defensiveness and secrecy were put ahead of patient safety and care.”
But in a statement the CQC insisted that there is “no evidence of a systematic cover up”.
However, it admits that the way the internal report was dealt with “is evidence of a failure of leadership within CQC and a dysfunctional relationship between the executive and the board”.
It continued in a statement: “The report shows how CQC provided false assurances to the public. We were slow to identify failings at the trust and then slow to take action…We let people down, and we apologise for that.”
The CQC also references the Mid Staffs scandal, saying the Grant Thornton report has “many echoes of the Francis report in that it reveals a lack of communication between organisations and a failure to listen to people using the services”.
But is also believes that a ‘line in the sand’ how has to be drawn, with the executive team and board ‘substantially’ changed since then – a point that Hunt also made in the Commons, with chief executive David Behan appointed in July last year and David Prior made chairman in January.
These new brooms have a lot of sweeping to do, and are counting on their appointment of three new inspectors – of hospitals, care homes and general practice – and the introduction of Ofsted-style ratings for establishments plus more rigorous inspections to help rebuild public confidence.
In January, the House of Commons health select committee’s report on the CQC said it needed to sort out the way it was run ‘as a matter of urgency’.
Adam Hill
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