Fifty NHS trusts targeted in first wave of new inspections regime: Five elite teams expected to be set up to carry out four-week probes under new strategy following Mid Staffs scandal.
Fifty NHS trusts that are giving cause for concern over care standards are to be targeted in the first wave of inspections led by the new chief inspector of hospitals who is to be appointed in the wake of the Mid Staffordshire scandal.
Five elite teams are expected to be set up to carry out the four-week probes and will include leading doctors, nurses and managers seconded from high-performing trusts.
Details of the beefed-up inspection regime will be outlined later this week when the care regulator for England, the Care Quality Commission, unveils a new strategy. For the first time, inspectors will formally check on the quality of leadership of trusts as well as the safety and quality of services. The government is to launch a consultation on how named managers and board members of all providers of health and social care, including private companies and charities, should be held personally to account.
The new CQC strategy will take forward some of the key responses by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to the public inquiry led by Robert Francis QC into the failings at hospitals run by the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust. Independent administrators were appointed on Monday to take over the trust.
In a revised statement of its purpose and role, the CQC will acknowledge that part of its brief is to "encourage services to improve" – not simply ensure they meet minimum standards – and to publish ratings of health and social care providers to help people choose services.
Alan Rosenbach, the CQC's special policy lead, told a care sector conference on Tuesday that inspections would be carried out against five core standards: were they safe, were they effective, were they caring, were they well-led and were they responsive to what people told them.
The new hospital inspection teams would draw on the best professional expertise as well as that of patients and family carers who had experienced the system. They would conduct a total of about 50 inspections a year.
"The initial focus will invariably be on those organisations where we need to make purposeful effort because they are falling short on the quality and safety expectations we have set against those five standards," Rosenbach said.
The chief inspector of hospitals would be appointed "fairly soon", Rosenbach added. Chief inspectors for social care and for primary and integrated care would follow.
Care services minister Norman Lamb told the conference, organised by care sector analysts Laing & Buisson, that he wanted senior managers and directors of care providers to be held to account, particularly in the home care market where abuse of vulnerable people could be hidden.
Lamb disclosed that he had written to ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, urging them to "name and shame" care providers paying workers less than the national minimum wage.
The Low Pay Commission has reported a sharp rise in the number of home care workers being paid below the minimum. It estimates that one in 40 workers is being paid below the legal threshold, rising to at least one in 10 if allowance is made for unpaid travelling time between jobs.
Lamb told care operators at the conference: "We need your help to identify rogue care providers who give the rest of you a bad name, destroying public confidence in the sector." The Guardian
Fifty NHS trusts that are giving cause for concern over care standards are to be targeted in the first wave of inspections led by the new chief inspector of hospitals who is to be appointed in the wake of the Mid Staffordshire scandal.
Five elite teams are expected to be set up to carry out the four-week probes and will include leading doctors, nurses and managers seconded from high-performing trusts.
Details of the beefed-up inspection regime will be outlined later this week when the care regulator for England, the Care Quality Commission, unveils a new strategy. For the first time, inspectors will formally check on the quality of leadership of trusts as well as the safety and quality of services. The government is to launch a consultation on how named managers and board members of all providers of health and social care, including private companies and charities, should be held personally to account.
The new CQC strategy will take forward some of the key responses by the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, to the public inquiry led by Robert Francis QC into the failings at hospitals run by the Mid Staffordshire NHS trust. Independent administrators were appointed on Monday to take over the trust.
In a revised statement of its purpose and role, the CQC will acknowledge that part of its brief is to "encourage services to improve" – not simply ensure they meet minimum standards – and to publish ratings of health and social care providers to help people choose services.
Alan Rosenbach, the CQC's special policy lead, told a care sector conference on Tuesday that inspections would be carried out against five core standards: were they safe, were they effective, were they caring, were they well-led and were they responsive to what people told them.
The new hospital inspection teams would draw on the best professional expertise as well as that of patients and family carers who had experienced the system. They would conduct a total of about 50 inspections a year.
"The initial focus will invariably be on those organisations where we need to make purposeful effort because they are falling short on the quality and safety expectations we have set against those five standards," Rosenbach said.
The chief inspector of hospitals would be appointed "fairly soon", Rosenbach added. Chief inspectors for social care and for primary and integrated care would follow.
Care services minister Norman Lamb told the conference, organised by care sector analysts Laing & Buisson, that he wanted senior managers and directors of care providers to be held to account, particularly in the home care market where abuse of vulnerable people could be hidden.
Lamb disclosed that he had written to ministers in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, urging them to "name and shame" care providers paying workers less than the national minimum wage.
The Low Pay Commission has reported a sharp rise in the number of home care workers being paid below the minimum. It estimates that one in 40 workers is being paid below the legal threshold, rising to at least one in 10 if allowance is made for unpaid travelling time between jobs.
Lamb told care operators at the conference: "We need your help to identify rogue care providers who give the rest of you a bad name, destroying public confidence in the sector." The Guardian
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