How does the Care Quality Commission protect patients?
The NHS employs approximately 1.5 million people in the UK, including over 40,000 GPs and over 300,000 nurses. It helps roughly 1 million patients every 36 hours. With over 150 NHS Trusts across the country, the NHS is one of the biggest employers in the world.
Such an extensive organisation, dedicated to patient care, requires a high degree of monitoring to try to ensure that patients receive a good and consistent quality of service.
What is the Care Quality Commission?
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is an organisation established by the government and accountable to parliament which provides independent monitoring of this system, as well as of social care services.
The CQC website states: 'The Care Quality Commission monitors, inspects and regulates health care services to ensure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety.'
The purpose of the CQC is to monitor the provision of health and social care both in practical terms of safety, staffing, management, equipment and quality of premises, but also in terms of personal interactions. They aim to ensure that all patients:
- receive good standards of care
- are treated with respect, honesty, individuality
- are helped to understand the nature of the care being offered to them
- are asked to provide informed consent to their treatment
- are protected from neglect and abuse.
How does the CQC work?
In order to achieve these aims, the CQC monitors a wide range of providers of healthcare including hospitals, GP surgeries, out-of-hours services, minor injury units and walk-in centres, as well as care homes.
The CQC inspects health and social care premises, records and publishes data on performance, registers care providers and monitors complaints against providers. It interviews both staff and patients.
In judging the quality of health and social care establishments, the CQC considers five key questions:
- Are they safe?
- Are they effective?
- Are they caring?
- Are they responsive to people's needs?
- Are they well-led?
Healthcare services are regularly inspected and, according to what they find, the CQC grades them as either outstanding, good, requiring improvement or inadequate.
Where a healthcare provider falls below the required standards, the CQC can take the following action:
- demand specific, times improvements
- restrict services available
- supervise closely
- fine the provider
- prosecute the healthcare provider where patients have been harmed
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