Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an independent body set up by government to make sure people in England get better health and adult social care.

Beginning in April this year they are introducing a new system of regulation called the essential standards of quality and safety. The new standards are designed to bring important benefits to people who use services. The CQC are starting with independently regulating all NHS providers across the country. This will impact everyone in Wandsworth.

2 reports and an important consultation are the main items of interest for Wandsworth people in the CQC November newsletter.We have already published information on the ratings the Commission gave our local healthcare suppliers in our piece dated 20th October.

GPs feature in both reports.

How did you get on with taking the pills after leaving hospital? Were you given enough help?

The first report looks at how well patients’ medication is managed after patients leave hospital. The CQC visited 12 primary care trusts (PCTs), and surveyed 280 of their GP practices.

During our visits, the CQC saw some evidence of good practice, but also found the following concerns:

* Information shared about patients moving between GPs and hospitals is often patchy, incomplete and not shared quickly enough
* GP patient records are not always updated by clinical staff
* Too few patients are offered discussions with their GP about managing their medication
* GPs are not consistently reporting medication incidents and errors, and PCTs are not always monitoring them.

Worries about out of hours services from GPs

On the basis of its work with five trusts, the CQC believes there might be a widespread problem with PCTs across the country not monitoring GP out-of-hours services closely enough.

It says PCTs must look at details like the quality of clinical decisions, the efficiency of call handling, the adequacy of staffing and doctors’ training in order to rigorously monitor performance.

The work was triggered by the tragic case of Mr David Gray, a patient treated by an out-of-hours locum doctor from Germany who died following the administration of 100mg of diamorphine.

The CQC’s enquiries continue.

The CQC Strategy Plan 2010-15

The CQC is asking for your views on how best it should be going about using its powers and resources to achieve the best possible for people in England. Find out how you can get involved here.

The Wandsworth Carers Conference – for those who look after an adult in Wandsworth and are not paid for the care they give.

10.30am to 3pm Tuesday 6th October at the Civic Suite Wandsworth High St., SW18 2PU

The LINks will have a stall at this event where Carers are invited to come and have a ’speed date’ with the people responsible for providing support and services for carers in Wandsworth. These senior professionals from the Council, Health and Mental Health Services will be there to answer your questions about the plans they have made for action and improvement in these area.

National Carer in Chief will be there

Dame Philippa Russell Chair of the Government’s Commission for Carers will be there to give the keynote address.

Free lunch, Entertainment and Other Treats

Meet your fellow unpaid carers and don’t forget to come and tell us what we should be saying on your behalf to the bigwigs. No need to ’speed date’ us – we’ll be sticking around.

In this edition of their newsletter, the CQC announces the publication of its Voices Into Action manifesto – their commitment to giving people a bigger say in how health and social care services can be improved. They consulted widely when putting it together and have given good feedback (in line with one of their Voices in Action commitments) on the action they took. telling us for example that the title of the document was changed as a result of feedback at events. The section on governance was clarified and decisions made about which advisory groups the CQC was going to have initially.

The full report of the consultation is available via their news release.

Looking for independent committee members

The Commission is looking for independent members to serve on its Audit and Risk Committee and you can see how to apply here.

You can sign up for the CQC newsletter online.

The Healthcare Commisssion as was thought it worth adding a question mark to the title of its last publication on patient and public engagement under its old colours before merging into the CQC. People writing reviews on how well patient and public engagement is working usually find it necessary to pose questions about the amount of progress made and degree of achievement.

You can see why this should be the case with findings like the one where 98% of healthcare organisations state that they met Standard 17 ( the standard about taking on board the views of patients, carers and others when “designing, planning, delivering and improving healthcare services.”) while 25% of all comments from others such as patient forums and Oversight and Scrutiny Committees (the local government committee that takes an interest in these things and is heavily involved with our LINk) were negative. Some 80% of the views expressed were about trust failing to seek the views of patients and public. There seems to be a definite contradiction there as well as a reminder that a tick in the ’standards met’ box is not necessarily a guarantee that all is well.

The out-going Commission has sent out a classic end of term ‘could do better’ report – lots of good examples and agreement about what good practice looks like but still a way to go.

If you have time to take on board almost 100 pages of good advice, it is worthwhile read for all those interested in making a more effective reality of the theory of public engagement.

The PDF linked in the text above, is available also available here for download.
Listening, learning, working together – The Healthcare Commission (PDF, 872Kb)