WIREDGOV

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) welcomes the publication of the Dr Foster Hospital Guide. CQC says the information on hospitals contained in the Guide is valuable in helping to build an overall picture of the quality of care provided by hospitals.

CQC routinely uses information such as that contained within the Hospital Guide to identify where there are risks that hospital care is not meeting essential standards.  CQC does this through its Quality and Risk Profiles (QRP) system which it uses to prompt inspectors about where to look and what to look for.

Richard Hamblin, CQC’s Director of Intelligence, said: “We are pleased to use Dr Foster information from the Hospital Guide in our Quality and Risk Profiles.

“QRPs are the product of a lot of research and work. The important things about them is that they are dynamic, giving us a constantly updated view of a provider. And they allow us to look at risks and outcomes, focussing our regulatory work where it matters.

“When we identify risks, we review and inspect services to see what’s behind them – ‘risk-based regulation’. And where necessary, we seek improvements against clear timescales or take strong enforcement action (and follow up)”.

QRPs bring together all the information CQC holds about an organisation into one place. Currently, the QRP for NHS hospitals includes the Hospital Standardised Mortality Rates (HMSR) data that Dr Foster uses in its guides alongside 18 other measures of mortality related to individual conditions.  These are included alongside a vast range of other information on outcomes – there are typically 500 individual measures in a QRP, including what patients have to say about their care.  We have started to discuss with Dr Foster how the other measures in this report can be added to the QRP, and are very pleased with the co-operative relationship that we enjoy with them.

A key feature of QRPs is that information is frequently updated – at least monthly – so that they provide a dynamic and up-to-date picture of a provider. QRPs are shared with providers as they are updated, so we all work from the same data.

CQC’s judgements are not only made from data such as these.  We have about 850 inspectors, and we believe that judgements should be made by people who have seen what is happening on the ground – including from unannounced inspections.  For that reason, while indicators such as death rates are critical for asking important questions, we don’t use them to make judgements by themselves.  In doing so we operate in line with the principles of the recent consensus statement concerning mortality rates signed by, among others, Dr Foster and ourselves.

Because CQC’s assessment of hospitals involves unannounced inspections, we cannot comment on any reviews we may be carrying out or planning at individual trusts.

Notes to editors

To accompany this release, CQC has produced a background note on safety:

Download our background note on safety (DOC, 45KB, opens in new window)

For further information please contact the CQC press office on 0207 448 9401 or out of hours on 07917 232143.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of all health and adult social care in England. Our aim is to make sure that better care is provided for everyone, whether it is in hospital, in care homes, in people’s own homes, or anywhere else that care is provided. We also seek to protect the interests of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act. We promote the rights and interests of people who use services and we have a wide range of enforcement powers to take action on their behalf if services are unacceptably poor.

We are introducing a new registration system that brings the NHS, independent healthcare and adult social care under a single set of essential standards of quality and safety for the first time. Registration is a legal license to operate. We register health and adult social care services if they meet essential standards and we continuously monitor them to make sure they continue to do so as part of a dynamic system of regulation which places the views and experiences of people who use services at its centre.