Wes Streeting today issued an extraordinary warning against relying on the verdicts of a watchdog on hospitals and nursing homes.
The Health Secretary said an explosive review showed the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was “rotten” and described some of its ratings as “made up”.
In a brutal round of interviews this morning, Mr Streeting said he was “stunned” to learn that one in five care providers had never been tested and that it had been a decade since some hospitals, doctors’ offices and nursing homes had been checked.
Mr Streeting said there was evidence that some of the ratings had been “effectively fabricated and invented using biased opinions and inspections combined with historical ratings and judgements”.
He said there were “people going into nursing homes with no experience of common conditions like dementia and making judgements about the quality of care; people going into hospitals with no real experience of providing hospital care”.
The CQC says it makes sure health and social care services in England provide people with “safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care” by monitoring and inspecting what they do.
But the independent review by Dr Penny Dash found that fewer than half the number of inspections were carried out last year than in 2019/20.
Inspectors also have a worrying lack of experience. Some inspectors said they had never been in a hospital and one who visited care homes had never met a person with dementia.
Wes Streeting (pictured) has branded the CQC regulator “not fit for purpose”
The Health Secretary said he was “stunned” to learn that one in five care providers had never received a rating from the Care Quality Commission (file image)
Dr Dash, chair of the North West London Integrated Care Board, was commissioned to conduct the review by former health secretary Victoria Atkins in May.
Mr Streeting ordered the publication of an interim report, saying urgent action was needed to improve regulation and ensure transparency.
Speaking to BBC Breakfast, he said he was “horrified” by what he had found.
“First of all, honesty is the best policy, which is why I rushed to publish the interim results, because there are people who are analyzing the scores today and I cannot trust them, and I don’t think the public can trust them,” he said.
‘I have urgently called on the CQC to establish transparency around these ratings so that people can see how they were produced and then make a judgement on whether they are a true, fair and accurate reflection of the quality of care.
“Leadership is vital. We need a new permanent chief executive at the Care Quality Commission and a new chief inspector of hospitals who we can work with to turn the regulator around.”
He added: “I never expected to be told that one in five health and care providers had not received a rating, that some health and care providers had not been inspected for a decade, that some of those ratings are effectively fabricated and invented using biased views and inspections combined with historical ratings and judgements.
“I am absolutely appalled.”
Mr Streeting said there were “brilliant people working across the NHS and social care but what we can’t do is pretend that we don’t see huge amounts of failure”.
“It is intolerable that this failure is festering within the CQC,” he said.
“We will not tolerate this, we will take the necessary measures to carry out the radical reform that this organization needs.”
Mr Streeting said members of the public checking ratings on the CQC website should “take them with a grain of salt”.
But he denied that funding was the problem. Streeting said: “I don’t think money is the problem here. I think it’s culture.”
He said a “radical overhaul” of the organisation was needed and he wanted to be clear with potential candidates about the scale of the challenge in recruiting a new permanent chief inspector of hospitals for the CQC.
He said: ‘When I joined the department it was already clear that the NHS was broken and the social care system was in crisis.
Mr Streeting said there was evidence that some of the ratings had been “effectively fabricated and invented using partial views and inspections combined with historical ratings and judgements” (file photo)
Experts have previously raised concerns that the CQC failed to expose wrongdoing at trusts that later became embroiled in major scandals.
Dash’s review identified “significant internal flaws” that hamper its ability to identify poor performance.
These included too few inspections, a lack of clinical experience among inspectors, a lack of consistency in assessments and problems with the CQC’s IT system.
Dr Dash said: “The content of my interim report underlines the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the CQC.”
Mr Streeting said the government would take immediate steps to restore public confidence in the regulator, including increased oversight, greater transparency in how it determines supplier ratings and a review of assessment frameworks.
Dr. Dash will publish her full report in the fall.