Serious questions over Care Quality Commission's leadership, says MP
"The abuses at Winterbourne View residential hospital underline the need to take more care in handling information from whistleblowers and also raise serious questions about the leadership of the Care Quality Commission".
Richard Bacon MP
Commenting on the publication of the National Audit Office report into the Care Quality Commission, South Norfolk MP Richard Bacon, a member of the Commons public accounts committee, said:
“The Care Quality Commission was created by merging three health and social care regulators and has a remit to register health and adult social care providers, to check their compliance with essential standards and to take enforcement action where necessary. However, after the Commission opened in April 2009 it experienced difficulties from the start.
“Just 53 per cent of provider registrations were completed on time and the Commission missed two out of three registration deadlines. Under pressure, the Commission opted to prioritise registration over compliance checks, resulting in only 47 per cent of its planned reviews being completed between October 2010 and March 2011.
“It was during this period that the Commission received information from a whistleblower regarding serious abuse taking place at the Winterbourne View residential hospital. However, instead of contacting the whistleblower immediately, the Commission passed the information to South Gloucestershire County Council and then failed to check what action, if any, the Council had taken.
“The abuses at Winterbourne View residential hospital underline the need to take more care in handling information from whistleblowers and also raise serious questions about the leadership of the Care Quality Commission.
“It is welcome that health and social care providers will be inspected at least once a year from April 2012 but it is not clear that the Commission is ready to expand its remit to oversee fertility clinics and HealthWatch England. There is a risk that this may distract the Commission from its core work”.
2 December 2011
NAO REPORT: The Care Quality Commission
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