Health secretary appoints outsider to look into new allegations about Care Quality Commission
The health secretary, Andrew Lansley, has ordered an urgent investigation into claims that the board of the regulator responsible for overseeing NHS hospitals and care homes has been prevented from questioning whether the chief executive should continue in her job.
In an unprecedented move, Lansley has gone outside the Department of Health and appointed Gill Rider, president of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and a former Cabinet Office civil servant, to investigate claims that the board of the Care Quality Commission (CQC) had been "sidelined" after asking questions about the watchdog's leadership.
The CQC's board, made up of four experts and led by its chair, is responsible for "strategic oversight" and is supposed to hold chief executive Cynthia Bower and her management to account.
The National Audit Office said earlier this month the CQC had not provided value for money for taxpayers and its failures had risked "unsafe or poor quality (patient) care".
On Monday, Bower will face MPs on the public accounts committee who want her to answer criticisms about the performance of the CQC since she took over in 2008.
Bower, who is paid more than £195,000 a year, was formerly chief executive of the NHS West Midlands strategic health authority, where she was responsible for supervising the performance of Stafford hospital during the time it was criticised over poor standards of care.
She has become a central figure in the public inquiry considering how NHS overseers failed to spot how poor care at Stafford hospital led to hundreds of needless deaths between 2005-08.
Lansley is said to have been alarmed to read the testimony to the inquiry last month from Kay Sheldon, a CQC board member, denouncing Bower and chair Dame Jo Williams for putting "reputation-management and personal survival" ahead of patients' best interests.
Sheldon told the inquiry that key information had been withheld from the CQC's board and decisions were taken without its approval. She painted a picture of an organisation beset by a "bullying culture".
In her written evidence, she said: "A few months ago, I again raised the issue of whether Cynthia Bower's position was tenable. The response I got was that 'we do not need a high-profile sacking at this time'."
Sheldon says Williams called her and "shouted down the phone at me" after she tried to raise concerns about a key strategy with Bower in September.
Lansley has demanded a report on his desk "within weeks" that will see if "these matters were handled correctly".
Apart from the public inquiry, the NAO report and the parliamentary committee's investigation, a Department of Health performance and capability review is being held into the CQC.
At the public inquiry, the CQC categorically denied the substance of Sheldon's claims that there had been attempts to "prevent her from attending board meetings and carrying out her role as a board member". It said it had provided breakdowns of the CQC finances and had kept the board informed on key decisions.
A Department of Health spokesman confirmed to the Guardian: "We have ordered a review to quickly establish the facts around how Kay Sheldon's raising of concerns about the CQC were handled." The Guardian
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