What do the recent CQC reports mean for you?

There has been a lot of noise around the Care Quality Commission including the key reports by Dr Penny Dash and Sir Mike Richards. Key concerns were identified about the Single Assessment Framework (SAF) and its application:

• the way in which the SAF is described is poorly laid out on the CQC website, not well communicated internally or externally, and uses vague language
• there is limited information available for providers and users or patients as to what care looks like under each of the ratings categories, resulting in a lack of consistency in how care is assessed and a lost opportunity for improvement
• there are questions about how data on user and patient experience is collected and used
• more could be done to support and encourage innovation in care delivery
• there is insufficient attention paid to the effectiveness of care and a lack of focus on outcomes (including inequalities in outcomes)
• there is no reference to use of resources or the efficient and economic delivery of care, which is a significant gap
• there is little reference to, or acknowledgement of, the challenges in balancing risk and ensuring high-quality care across an organisation or wider health and care system

An immediate change has been the removal of scoring at evidence level. Scoring will now take place at quality statement and key question level with those being aggregated to produce an overall score, converted into a rating.

What do you need to do now?

The CQC remain the regulator and whilst some changes may take place, they will expect every provider to be delivering a safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led service with robust, available evidence mapped against each quality statement.