The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is asking people who
run and use health and care services for views on the regulator’s plans
for inspecting primary care dental services, and inspecting and rating
ambulance and independent healthcare services.
Following the earlier roll-out of CQC’s new inspection approach for
general practice, out-of-hours GP services, adult social care and in NHS
acute hospitals, three consultations are launched today (Friday 28
November) to seek views on CQC’s plans for inspecting dental, ambulance
and independent healthcare services.
CQC Chief Executive David Behan said:
"We have been carrying out new style of
inspections in hospitals, mental health and community health services,
adult social care services and GP practices over the past year.
“Now we are setting out the changes we are
proposing to make to the way we regulate dental services, ambulance
services and independent healthcare services that will help us to make
sure that they provide safe, high-quality care.
“We want to hear what professionals, clinicians and members of the public think of these proposals."
Due to the view that people using primary care dental services are
less likely to experience poor care, CQC proposes to inspect 10% of
providers using random and risk-based inspections as well as inspecting
in response to concerns. CQC does not intend to rate primary care dental
services in 2015/16.
The consultation asks for views on these elements of the new approach
and if people think that the approach will help dental practices to
improve, for example by reporting on good practice.
The CQC propose to divide the independent acute healthcare sector into
three distinct groups which are ‘hospitals’, ‘single-specialty services’
and ‘non-hospital acute services’.
The approach they are proposing for the hospitals group closely follows
the model used for NHS acute trust hospitals, with some
modifications to take account of the differences between them.
They are proposing other, tailored approaches for the single-specialty
services and non-hospital acute services. The CQC are asking whether the
sector agrees with these approaches.
They are also asking for views on whether special measures should be
introduced into the independent healthcare sector and whether there
should be a rating at corporate provider level for independent
healthcare providers.
For ambulance providers (both NHS and independent services) the CQC will
also take a similar approach to that of acute services to check if the
services are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and
well-led. This will help us to give NHS ambulances a rating of either
outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
