Agenda item

The Inspection Manager for the Adult Social Care Directorate of the Care Quality Commission, London Region, will be presenting an overview of inspections carried out in the borough and those planned for the future, drawing out key trends and lessons regarding the quality of care delivered in the borough.

The panel considered a presentation from Martin Haines, Inspection Manager, Adult Social Care Directorate, Care Quality Commission, London Region.

Mr Haines commenced his presentation by explaining that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) was the independent regulator of health and social care in England. It was explained that the purpose of the CQC was to ensure health and social care services provided safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care, and to encourage care services to improve. The panel noted that the role of the CQC was to monitor, inspect and regulate services to ensure they met fundamental standards of quality and safety. 

Mr Haines provided details concerning the information published by the CQC, including performance ratings, and on the methodology and approach used by the CQC. The following issues were noted in relation to the practicalities of inspection:

-       Unannounced except where this would be impractical

-       Provider Information Returns (PIR)

-       The emphasis that was placed on hearing people’s voices

-       The use of bigger inspection teams, including specialist advisors and experts by experience

The panel was informed that, under the new CQC framework, inspectors assessed all health and social care services against five key questions - is a service: safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s need and well-led? Mr Haines explained that a judgement framework supported this assessment,  providing a standard set of key lines of enquiry directly relating to the five questions. The panel noted that the new ratings system used the assessment of these five areas to rate services as: outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate. This enabled people to easily compare services. The panel was informed that services rated as outstanding were normally re-inspected within 2 years; good services within 18 months; services requiring improvement within a year; and inadequate services within 6 months.

Mr Haines concluded his presentation by providing information on the following:

-       The fit and proper person requirement to ensure directors or equivalents were accountable for the delivery of care and that they were fit and proper to carry out this role.

-       The purpose of special measures to ensure failing services were improved or closed.

During the discussion reference was made to the following:

-       The latest national and local CQC ratings, as of September 2015.

-       Fundamental CQC standards with a comparison between regulations used since April 2015 and previous regulations.

-       The programme of inspection for Haringey and how the CQC worked/communicated with the Council.

-       The importance of safeguarding, and issues in relation to the Council’s Establishment Concerns Procedure.

-       The importance of the CQC taking evidence from, and talking to, the relatives and carers of service users.

-       The ways in which members of the scrutiny panel, and members of the public, could receive further details about the CQC including information via the following channels: www.cqc.org.uk; enquiries@cqc.org.uk; and @CareQualityComm.   

The panel thanked Mr Haines for his attendance and it was agreed that the Care Quality Commission should attend a Scrutiny Panel meeting in October 2016 to provide an update on their inspection programme for Haringey.

AGREED:

1.    That the report and presentation from the Care Quality Commission be noted.

2.      That the Care Quality Commission be invited to attend a Scrutiny Panel meeting in October 2016 to provide an update on their inspection programme for Haringey.