Care Quality Commission (Registration and Membership) (Amendment) Regulations 2012

Monday 25th June 2012 Grand Committee

Motion to Take Note

19:11

Moved by

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

That the Grand Committee takes note of the Care Quality Commission (Registration and Membership) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/1186).

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of an NHS foundation trust, a consultant in the health service and a trainer in relation to Cumberlege Connections.

When we debated the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 in Grand Committee on 22 May, we touched on CQC’s governance, the PAC report of 12 March and the department’s capability review. The noble Earl will know that the PAC expressed some serious concerns and that his department’s capability review acknowledged that CQC could have done more to manage operational risk and provide better strategic direction.

The review recognised that the department and CQC had underestimated the scale of the task of combining three regulators into one organisation while developing and implementing a new regulatory model. The review also made recommendations to strengthen the board and the board structures, and to establish a unitary board with a majority of non-executives but with senior executives sitting on the board to enable a tighter accountability relationship between non-executives and senior executives. Let me say at once that the Opposition do not oppose these changes which bring CQC governance more into line with that of the National Health Service. While governance is important, underlining it are probably questions about CQC’s capacity to discharge its wide and important responsibilities.

I have read very carefully CQC’s response to the performance and capability review that has now been published. That fairly sets out the scale of the challenge that it faced. However, the CQC acknowledges that the strategy devised at the outset of the new regulatory body failed to take into account the complexity of the changes in the regulatory review regime and, in particular, the workload implicit in recognising so many providers, merging three organisations into one, while reducing costs and changing the working patterns and skill requirements of many of the staff who were either inherited or taken into the new organisation.

That is a very helpful recognition. Many who have been concerned with the architecture of CQC would have to take some responsibility for that; I do not detract from my own Government’s responsibility. We are trying to learn some of the lessons and hope that they can be embraced within the new strategy that CQC will take forward under its new leadership.

Nor do I ignore the progress that CQC has made. Creating a single regulator of health and adult social care services spanning, as CQC points out, more than 22,000 providers of 40,000 services is no mean challenge. Today’s Written Ministerial Statement in another place by the Minister of State, Mr Paul Burstow, concerning the Winterbourne View private hospital, which draws on the reports of the Care Quality Commission’s inspection of 150 hospices and care homes, also indicates the value of the work that has been undertaken by CQC.

19:15

I also want to repeat something that I said when we debated CQC only a few weeks ago. I do not seek to criticise the leadership qualities of either the chair or the chief executive, Cynthia Bower. They are both people whom I admire and respect. I believe that the task given to them was, if not undoable, a very challenging one. I also welcome David Behan’s appointment as the new chief executive. He comes with support from many people who have known and worked with him and from the stakeholder community generally. Having said that by way of introduction, may I ask whether the noble Earl is really convinced that that body is now able to fulfil the challenging programme that it has been set? Can he say something about the resources that are likely to be available to CQC in the next few years? I also come back to the point about the requirement for CQC to register 9,000 providers of primary medical services in the 2012-13 financial year. Is he convinced that CQC will be able to do that without detracting from its other major responsibilities?

I would also like to ask the noble Earl about the effectiveness and consistency of the regulatory model that CQC has adopted. I know that the commission has gone through a process of review and streamlined some of the processes, after criticism that the original process was too unwieldy and cumbersome. On the architecture and the philosophy of CQC using a generic model of regulation across all sectors, I know that that is becoming more frequent among regulatory bodies. I do not want to debate the HPC today, but the model is simple and it does not really matter whom you regulate; when you have the model, you can take on more and more organisations and sectors. I understand that up to a point and I understand, too, that CQC is committed to ensuring that the right level of specialist expertise is available when needed. However, thinking about the wide span of the organisations involved, which ranges from huge London teaching hospitals on the one hand to very small nursing homes on the other, I wonder whether that is the right approach. Particularly when it comes to large NHS organisations I wonder, too, whether instead of relying on their own inspectorate a peer-group review system might not be more appropriate.

Perhaps I can take the noble Earl back to what we lovingly called CHI, which was the first health regulator. It attempted to send teams of senior people into parts of the NHS. There was a problem because it was very difficult to persuade chief executives of major NHS bodies to serve on the CHI inspecting teams. What tended to happen was that primary care trusts provided most of the chief officer representatives. I always felt that we should have insisted that good chief executives, directors of finance and directors of nursing should as part of their duties have committed themselves to at least two to three weeks a year inspecting similar organisations. I wish we had done it.

I realise that the noble Earl will not be able to give a definitive response but I wonder whether part of the answer to the CQC’s problems is to embrace much more the people delivering services within the inspectoral regime, rather than relying on its own inspectors and bringing in specialists. Its credibility might be enhanced and it might share the load. If senior people in the NHS took part in the inspection of other areas of the NHS, it could be an important development process for them. I hope to hear from the noble Earl that, under the new director, the CQC would be prepared to look at these issues and its regulatory model and to talk to the people who are being regulated about ways in which the system might be developed in future.

Overall, the Opposition wish to support the CQC and to see it grow in credibility and responsiveness. However, we also look for reassurance from the noble Earl about its capacity to deliver the task that it has been set. As I said, I hope also that CQC will be prepared to review the way in which it carries out its business. It has a massive task and it must be difficult to come up with a model that will deal with the trust of the noble Baroness, Lady Wall, on the one hand and the very small residential home on the other. It would be worth while for the CQC to reflect on the way in which it will develop its regulatory regime in the future. I beg to move.

[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, we all want the CQC to be effective and efficient. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, has laid out a clear description of its history and where it is now. It has a difficult task: it has to balance registration complexity for those providing both health and social care and ensure safety and quality of services. Of course, since the Act of 2012, all providers in the public, private and voluntary sectors are involved and it has to extend its remit to include dentists and GPs. It has a huge task. There have clearly been failings in the past, but the organisation as a whole has faced up to them and has made many strides forward.

We have this SI as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. It is in two parts—registration, and governance and membership—and it throws up more questions than answers. I was reminded of a long time ago when I was a CHI reviewer. The training was superb; the teams went in and the inspection was intensive and penetrated every corner. Perhaps there would be some mileage in looking back at that model to see whether it could be incorporated into what currently exists.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I was interested in the noble Baroness’s comments about the CHI training process. Does she agree that one of the great advantages of the CHI approach was that, when a team went in, it had respect because the people in the team were the equals, if you like, of the people whom they were inspecting and, although it was an inspection and allowed people to work with an inspection team, it was almost a development opportunity for the organisation as well?

[Baroness Jolly]

Certainly that was my experience. Although there were instances where we had uncomfortable inspections, afterwards an awful lot of work was put in to try to remedy issues that had been raised. The team went in as a team and worked as a team. Everyone on the team had experience of working within the NHS in one format or another and, although we may not have carried out identical roles to those that we were inspecting, there was a clear awareness that we knew what we were about. I shall not carry on at great length because of the time.

The amendments to the registration are a tidying-up exercise. All that we are doing is replacing the National Patient Safety Agency with the NHS Commissioning Board Authority, so it is a cut-and-paste job, if you like. Will the Minister confirm that in due course this will subsequently transfer to the board when the board becomes the board and not just the authority? Will the Minister clarify the situations where deaths and other incidents in these situations involving service users—vulnerable people—are reported and say why they might be reported to the board and not to the CQC? If we are to learn anything from this information, it is critical that the board commits to publishing it on a regular basis. It also needs to be part of the board’s regular agenda.

On a related issue, will the Minister update the Committee on deaths of service users and untoward incidents, which cause difficulty for carers and, in the case of untoward incidents, the patients themselves? During the consideration of the 2012 Bill, there was much debate about the duty of candour. Will the Minister give us some sort of update on where things are? I remind him of his comment on 27 February:

“I reiterate the commitment that I have given today that the Government intend to use the ‘standing rules’ regulations to specify that the contractual duty of candour must be included in the NHS standard contract”.—[Official Report, 27/2/12; col. 1055.]

That was a welcome move but I would appreciate it if the Minister could update us on where we are. I appreciate that this will not happen overnight; it will require training and a large amount of cultural change.

I move on to the governance and board membership issue. Today we had the interesting interim report on the Winterbourne View Hospital. Bearing that in mind, will the Minister reflect on whether he believes that the new governance arrangements proposed in these regulations will minimise or even avoid a repetition of this level of behaviour or such an appalling lack of dignity for those with learning disabilities? Does he believe that adequate funding is available for the CQC? Again, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, gave us a long list with numbers relating to its remit—it is really broad and deep. The Committee would probably feel comfortable if it felt that the CQC was being ably supported with adequate resources. It has had a difficult role in changing times and it can use its registration requirements to drive up quality. To that end, the Government must work with it. I think that we would all agree that service users and carers deserve no less.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

My Lords, I, too, support my noble friend’s view of the CQC. I want to mention, as he has done, the work carried out by the previous chief executive and the chair of the CQC, and welcome the new chief executive. The noble Lord may remember that when we had a discussion in the House on the social services Bill about care in some care homes, he made a plea, in response to a question, that we should look at the CQC’s responsibilities and not blame the CQC itself for everything that happens. More and more, that is certainly my view.

I am not aware of any detail of the alternative ways that the noble Lord and the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, have mentioned, but I am concerned about—my noble friend raised this issue—the credibility of the CQC. I have noticed from my experience in the trust that the more responsibilities the CQC has been given, the greater the perception that it is going to be very thinly spread and that its expertise will in some way be weakened. That may be people’s view rather than the reality, but I think that we owe it to everyone who has a relationship with the CQC not to dilute it by continually adding to its responsibilities. I know from my own experience how important its inspections are, certainly in hospitals.

The noble Lord referred to my trust, which covers a two-district general hospital, and also to some very small GP practices and other areas of work. I am a great supporter of the CQC, as the noble Lord will know. I feel that it has done a tremendous job and has made a difference compared with what happened before it came into being. I want to strengthen that rather than in any way to dilute its reputation. For example, people who work in my hospital say, “My goodness, it’s doing everything now”, but what does that really mean? I am sure that the noble Earl will have listened to everything that has been said and that he will think very carefully about what the CQC’s credibility means to all of us in terms of its responsibilities.

19:30

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am most grateful to noble Lords who have spoken and shall endeavour to cover the questions and points they have raised in a moment. However, before I do so, perhaps I may briefly take the Committee through the purpose of this instrument.

The regulations before us today make changes to two areas of the legislation that affect the operation of the CQC. The first component of this statutory instrument makes two small amendments to the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 to replace references to the National Patient Safety Agency, the NPSA, with references to the NHS Commissioning Board Authority. The second relates to the make-up of the commission’s board. I shall say more about the purpose of these changes in a moment but I should like to reflect on the importance of the Care Quality Commission as the independent regulator of health and adult social care services in England.

The commission plays a vital role in providing assurance that patients and service users receive the standards of care that they have a right to expect. All providers of regulated activities in England, regardless of whether they are public, private or voluntary sector organisations, are required to register with the commission. Providing a regulated activity without being registered is an offence. In order to be registered, providers have to comply with a set of registration requirements that set the essential levels of quality and safety. Where providers do not meet these essential levels, the commission has a range of enforcement powers that it can use to protect patients and service users from unsafe care, including, in the most extreme cases of poor care, closing down services. The changes to the commission effected through the Health and Social Care Act 2012 are to strengthen the CQC as the quality regulator of health and adult social care services.

I shall now explain why we need to make these changes to the regulations included in the instrument under debate. Under Regulations 16 and 18 of the CQC registration regulations, registered providers of regulated health service activities have been required to notify the CQC of unexpected deaths of service users or other serious incidents, except where such providers have already reported the death or incident to the NPSA. This exception was designed to reduce the reporting burden on providers, preventing the duplication of reporting to both the NPSA and the CQC. Notifications to the NPSA were processed through the national reporting and learning system, the NRLS, and notifications made in the circumstances described in Regulations 16 and 18 of the registration regulations were passed on to the commission by the NPSA. However, from 1 June, responsibility for oversight of the NRLS transferred from the NPSA to the NHS Commissioning Board Authority. Therefore, the amendments to which I referred were needed to reflect the changing ownership of and responsibility for the NRLS and to update the exception and allow it to continue from 1 June.

Relevant notifications to the NRLS will continue to be passed to the CQC under the new arrangements. To set this in context, as noble Lords are aware, the arm’s-length bodies review in 2010 recommended the abolition of the NPSA, and provision is made for the recommended abolition in Section 281 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Provision in the Act is also made for the NHS Commissioning Board to have responsibility for the patient safety functions formerly carried out by the NPSA. I shall briefly reiterate why we believe this to be entirely sensible and in the best interests of patients. Patient safety has to be the key priority for all those working in the health service. It can never be allowed to be seen as an add-on or an afterthought.

For that reason the Act puts safety at the heart of the NHS, not at arm’s length. Safety is, of course, a central part of quality and we believe that the board, as a body legally responsible for ensuring continuous quality improvement in the NHS, will be best placed to drive a powerful safety agenda throughout the NHS. Embedding safety across the health and social care system is vital. That is why oversight of the patient safety function has been conferred on the shadow body—the NHS Commissioning Board Authority—from 1 June. The NPSA did not have the authority or position to fully exploit the information gained from the NRLS. In contrast the board will have the necessary authority and, being positioned at the very heart of the system, will be better placed to lead and drive improvements. Patients rightly expect that all NHS services will be safe. We believe that by making the board responsible for safety, we are placing that responsibility at the centre of the NHS.

The second part of the regulations makes changes to the regulations setting out the composition of the Care Quality Commission’s board. These changes are in response to the recommendations of the Department of Health’s review into the performance and capability of the commission. The review recommended that the department should take steps to strengthen the board, including changing its structure to that of a unitary board, so that instead of comprising only non-executives, senior executives can also be appointed and held to account by the non-executive members. The model of a unitary board also potentially offers strength in combining the strategic views of the non-executives with the organisational knowledge of the executives. In addition, the performance and capability review recommended that the Secretary of State should strengthen the board by appointing new non-executive members to existing board vacancies. The regulations, therefore, remove the bar in the commission’s existing regulations stating that the Secretary of State cannot appoint an employee of the commission to the board, so allowing for the creation of a unitary board. The regulations also extend the number of members who can be appointed to the commission’s board so as to accommodate the senior executives. The upper limit is currently set at 10, and these regulations extend that to 12. That allows flexibility in the appointment of new executive and non-executive members to strengthen the board’s capability.

I was very grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on the appointment of David Behan as chief executive of the commission. I am sure he will agree that David’s wealth of experience around adult social care and local government system reforms at the department as director-general for social care, local government and care partnerships will stand him in excellent stead for his new role as chief executive of the CQC. David’s previous experience as the first chief inspector of the Commission for Social Care Inspection and as president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, as well as his other front-line experience, will also be a great advantage to the commission.

All noble Lords who spoke asked about resources and funding. It is important to recognise that the CQC recovers fees from providers to cover the cost of registration. In addition, it receives grant in aid to cover its other functions. Every year, the CQC agrees its business plan with the Department of Health and its financial position is kept under constant review. We have agreed that the CQC will receive additional funding for staff recruitment in 2012-13.

Allied with the question of resources was that about the CQC’s capability. We have every confidence in the CQC’s ability to provide the effective regulation of providers of health and adult social care. I welcomed what the noble Baroness, Lady Wall, had to say about that. As the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, has acknowledged, huge improvements are being made in the delivery of its core task of providing assurance that services for patients and service users are safe and of appropriate quality. The CQC leadership is now demonstrating greater confidence and challenge. The recommendations that we made in the performance and capability review are aimed at building on performance during the past 12 months to strengthen capability further and to improve accountability, including accountability with the department.

We are committed to supporting and strengthening the CQC. We are clear that the CQC should continue to focus on its core role of assessing whether providers meet the essential levels of safety and quality through its registration function. The department is assured that the CQC is delivering its core functions and learning from its implementation of the registration system, improving the way in which it carries out its core business to provide a better service. We have emphasised to the CQC the importance of ensuring that providers continue to comply with regulations and safety and quality requirements. The CQC continues to monitor closely the information on service providers that it receives and takes regulatory enforcement action if it finds the safety and quality of services to be lacking in any case.

We are committed to developing the role of the CQC as the quality regulator of health and adult social care services in England. The functions that the CQC will gain as a result of the Health and Social Care Act 2012—joint licensing with Monitor, information governance monitoring and hosting Healthwatch England—and the potential transfer of functions from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Human Tissue Authority, subject to consultation, are all aimed at strengthening its role in assuring the safety and quality of health and adult social care services.

I emphasise that these changes will not happen overnight. For example, the delivery of joint licensing is not expected until 2014, and any transfer of functions from the HFEA or the HTA will not happen until 2015. The CQC will have a number of years to prepare for these functions, including assessing the resources needed to carry them out. During this time, the department will work with the CQC to ensure that it is ready to take on the functions at a pace that avoids distracting the commission from its core responsibilities and placing the delivery of its current functions at risk.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, spoke about the CQC’s methodology and in particular the “generic model of regulation”. Professional regulation, as he knows, conducted through the GMC, the GDC and other professional regulators, focuses mainly on the competence of the individual professional. However, the way in which organisations are managed and their systems work, together with factors such as the suitability of premises, also affects the safety and quality of the services provided. CQC registration will ensure that competent individuals meet the needs of their patients without putting them at risk from potential system or premises weaknesses. It is encouraging that both the General Practitioners Committee and the Royal College of General Practitioners have issued joint statements with the CQC illustrating the profession’s acknowledgment of the need for CQC registration and the light-touch approach that the CQC is taking to bringing providers into registration.

I argue that there is a generic element to the regulation process, but that does not mean that the CQC approaches its task on a one-size-fits-all basis. I have accompanied CQC inspectors when visiting a dental practice, and I know that there are non-generic elements of its methodology that apply only to dentistry. The CQC has worked with stakeholders and trialled its processes to keep these to a minimum, but it is important that it has the capacity to take action where services do not meet essential standards.

19:45

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, advanced an interesting proposal involving peer-group participation in the review system. The CQC, as part of improving and refining its regulatory model, is building up a pool of experts to work with it, bringing specialist knowledge and credibility. It has adopted this model already with dignity and nutrition work and learning disability inspections. It has also taken and continues to take into account the views of people using services, including taking them on inspection visits where appropriate. The noble Lord’s idea is already one that the CQC is working on, but if I can gain any further information on that front, I will gladly pass it on to him.

My noble friend Lady Jolly asked about the state of play, if I can put it that way, regarding the duty of candour. She will know from our debates on the Bill that we believe this to be an extremely important element of the safety culture, ensuring that staff across the NHS are open with patients. The responses to the public consultation on the contractual duty of candour are currently being analysed and considered. While we currently believe that a contractual duty is likely to be the most effective mechanism to improve openness in the NHS, we are fully considering all the consultation responses received. We are also aware that Robert Francis QC has said that he is likely to comment on the proposed duty of candour in the report of the inquiry into the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. We remain committed to giving full and careful consideration to the findings and recommendations of the inquiry, including any recommendations on the duty of candour, and to taking whatever action we consider necessary as a result.

My noble friend also referred to today’s announcement by the CQC in its national overview report of learning disability inspections, alongside the department’s interim learning disabilities review report. While this has found that failings on the scale of those seen at Winterbourne View are not widespread, it has found that 48% of the inspected providers were not providing care that met the essential levels of safety and quality, and that is simply unacceptable. The department’s interim report sets out the national actions that we are taking now to address the serious issues that we have already identified. The national actions will set the strategic direction, create the policy and legal frameworks and look at what longer-term changes are needed in monitoring and inspecting services. Today’s interim report will feed into the wider Department of Health review of Winterbourne View, which is due later in the year. Once criminal proceedings are concluded, Ministers will report its findings to Parliament and determine what further action is necessary.

My noble friend asked why incidents are to be reported to the board and not to the CQC. The requirement remains to report serious incidents and unexpected deaths to the CQC, but that requirement can be met by reporting incidents to the board using the national reporting and learning system. This prevents the need, as I explained in my earlier remarks, for double and duplicate reporting. The model of CHI—that is, both CHI and CHAI—was cited by my noble friend Lady Jolly and the noble Lord, Lord Hunt.

The CQC’s approach is to work wherever possible with providers to identify compliance but, unlike its predecessors in the NHS, it now has enforcement powers that it can use to ensure that providers are brought back into compliance. Inspections are structured to ensure that they are able to identify and address poor practice. There has of necessity been a shift in the CQC’s working method compared with its predecessors for those reasons.

I have listened carefully to all the speeches, including that of the noble Baroness, Lady Wall, whose points I have not fully addressed. However, in so far as I have failed to cover points and questions, I shall of course write after the debate. I commend the instrument to the House.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his comprehensive response and the noble Baronesses, Lady Wall and Lady Jolly, for joining the debate.

The noble Earl can take it that there is general cross-party support for the work of the CQC; we wish it and Mr Behan well. The tasks that it faces are formidable, but I hope that with the resource increase referred to by the noble Earl and the spirit of support and co-operation, it will be able to make progress in the next few years.

I should like to raise two points. First, I did not mention the National Patient Safety Agency in my opening remarks, although I was tempted to do so. I understand the point the noble Earl is making. The main responsibility of the NPSA, of which I was chair a few years ago, was to record these incidents and then send out reports of the trends. The issue was with what happened to put that into practice. The noble Earl’s argument is that by bringing that into the NHS Commissioning Board it will be more in the mainstream of the architecture and more likely that the reports of those trends will be taken account of in the health service. The risk is that the National Reporting and Learning Service will no longer be seen as independent because it is part of the management structure and that, in the future, staff will be more reluctant to report incidents. All I ask of the noble Earl is that his department keeps a close eye on the number of incidents that are reported. If there appears to be a tailing off, the Government might need to revisit the issue of where the NRLS is placed.

Secondly, on the approach and methodology of the CQC, I fully accept that life has moved on since the CHI model. The CHI model was certainly not perfect but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, suggested, it benefited from high-quality inspection teams. I am glad that the noble Earl listened carefully to what I had to say on that matter and I hope that this can be the start of a more general engagement on the work of CQC and its methodology. It enjoys support for what it does and we want it to do well in the future, but we would also like to take part in these important discussions.

Having said that, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate.

Motion agreed.

Committee adjourned at 7.53 pm.