CQC publishes first quality of care in a place prototype report

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today published the first of three prototype reports looking at how it might assess the quality of care in a local area in order to encourage improvement.

The project that has resulted in this report on North Lincolnshire has been carried out with the help and support of health and care organisations in the area. The findings will be presented to members of North Lincolnshire’s Health and Wellbeing board and key stakeholders later in the month.

This pilot was designed to find out if CQC would be able to from a view about quality across an area as a whole, in addition to CQC’s existing regulation of individual care providers, such as hospitals, care homes or GP services.

The prototype reports will be evaluated to understand if CQC can demonstrate whether reporting on quality of care in a place can encourage improvement locally. Feedback from local organisations and local people will be an important part of the evaluation. CQC will also be exploring whether reports can help CQC’s inspection of health and care providers by giving its inspection teams more context about an area.

The work will also start to help to inform CQC’s thinking about how to regulate new care models, for example when providers come together to form a new care organisation providing a wider range of services, and whether reporting in this way could improve transparency for people living in a local area.

David Behan, CQC Chief Executive, said: "At the moment, there is information on the quality of care provided by organisations, including CQC’s ratings and inspection reports, but there’s little or nothing to tell people how well organisations are working together or what the overall quality of care is like in a local area.

"I believe strongly that increased partnership working at the local level, and shared ownership of health and social care outcomes across the area, is vital to ensure people receive high quality care.

"Through three prototype reports, CQC’s Quality of Care in a Place project is exploring if we can bring information together in a way that helps local organisations see where they can collectively improve health and care services for local people.

"This is in the context of CQC considering how to evolve its regulatory approach in the context of greater focus on care in a local area, as emphasised recently by the Government’s spending review and the NHS planning guidance which includes sustainability and transformation plans for local areas.

"We are very grateful to the key stakeholders in North Lincolnshire for being so generous with their time and supportive of this project. We will continue to work with them to see how we can improve and develop this approach."

Cllr Rob Waltham, Chairman, North Lincolnshire Health and Wellbeing Board, said: "It is vital that all organisations work together to ensure we collectively deliver the right level of care to our residents. There are many good examples of partnership working and what the CQC is proposing will strengthen that.

"We want to ensure that people receive good quality care and the right care at the right time in a way that enables them to continue to live independent lives."

The report was based on a combination of existing data and interviews and discussion groups.

Existing data included the results of the inspections we have carried out in the area and other data and information from local people and local and national organisations including Public Health England (PHE) and the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

CQC conducted a series of interviews with senior health and social care stakeholders across North Lincolnshire who use and run health and care services. This included talking to representative organisations such as Healthwatch. It also undertook a focus group with the voluntary sector and spoke to senior staff from providers.

While this is a pilot project, CQC hopes that its findings will be helpful. North Lincolnshire commissioners, providers of health and care and those who lead the system locally may use the report to contribute to the development of integrated services locally.

The second and third prototype reports on Tameside and Salford in Greater Manchester will be published in May.

The North Lincolnshire prototype report includes a number of questions about the project and the findings. We welcome your views on these at the link below.

Have your say on the report

CQC’s consultation on its strategy for the next five years, published on 25 January, also asks for views on how CQC might look at the quality of care across local areas.