Care Quality Commission (Fees) (Reviews and Performance Assessments) Regulations 2016

Lord Prior of Brampton Excerpts

Tuesday 10th May 2016 Grand Committee

I believe that this approach can be developed further to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the regulation and inspection in health and social care. It can also demonstrate the CQC’s commitment to an “intelligence-driven approach to regulation” that is at the same time robust and credible. Such an approach would offer the very real prospect of easing both budgetary pressures and regulatory fees in the future.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, I first acknowledge the fact that any increase in fees, at a time when providers of adult social care, the NHS and elsewhere are going through a very tough time, is clearly very unwelcome. So perhaps it was not surprising, in a sense, that in the consultation when given the choice of spreading the increase over four years or two years, everyone voted for four years rather than two. I think everyone knows that, over time, it was the intention of the previous Government, as well as this one, to have full cost recovery. In the end, that must be right, but it is a question of how long it takes to get from where we are to where we need to be.

Most people will understand why the scope of the CQC’s work has developed over the past three or four years. The origins of the new CQC lay in what happened in Mid Staffordshire, Morecambe Bay and Winterbourne View, and a feeling that those tragedies could not be allowed to happen again. A much more comprehensive, expert-led inspection regime was the right way to try to unearth those awful things.

I totally understand what has been said by my noble friend Lord Lindsay and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about moving towards a more risk-based form of inspection. In the CQC’s strategy, which will be announced in a week or so, I hope there will be some reference to it having a more risk-based inspection regime. Of course, that has to be based, as my noble friend Lord Lindsay mentioned, on good intelligence. Over the past three years, the CQC has been able to collect intelligence, particularly on NHS trusts, where there are much better data—we are also using soft data as well as hard data—and that does enable one to put in place a more risk-based system of inspection. It has already said that it will re-inspect institutions that have a “Good” or “Outstanding” rating after a longer period of time than the ones with “Requires improvement” or “Inadequate”. But we will see when it produces its strategy next week exactly what it is planning to do.

On the comments of my noble friend Lord Lindsay, we did have some discussions when I was at the CQC, but I have to accept that they did not get very far. However, I would encourage him to meet the new chairman of the CQC, Peter Wyman, as well as David Behan, whom he already knows, to see whether or not there is any way that UKAS accreditation can help not just in adult social care but in aspects of clinical care as well.

On the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, about the consultation, the consultation period did go from 21 December 2015 to 1 February 2016. There was a reasonable period of consultation, but I accept that the implementation of the increase was much quicker. I also know that, although it did not sound very much in the context of the whole, for individual trusts this was just another cost increase that they had to bear. It is worth noting that the total cost of the CQC as a proportion of the whole that is expected for adult social care and the NHS is around 0.19%—very similar to the cost of Ofsted in education. So it is not as though it is expensive; it is just that the level of cost recovery has been ordained to be over a shorter time.

It is also worth noting that, for domiciliary care, the period of time is over four years and not two years. For GPs, where it was felt that the cost increase was the straw that might break the camel’s back, the baseline funding has been increased to allow for the extra increase.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, am I right in thinking that the help for GPs will be over just one year?

[Lord Prior of Brampton]

I believe that it has gone into the baseline funding of the GP contract, but if I am wrong about that I shall write to the noble Baroness.

More generally, the CQC’s scope and the way that it does its inspections is just much broader than it used to be. They are done in more depth and detail. This statutory instrument was introduced to Parliament so that it would reflect what the CQC is now doing and recognise its enlarged scope. The regulations do not extend the remit of the CQC’s activity or the scope of reviews or performance assessments to additional providers or services; neither does it change the fees actually charged.

The CQC, like every other aspect of the NHS, is going to have to save a considerable amount of money over the next five years, which the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to in his speech. This means that the kind of inspections which we have seen in some NHS trusts, where a large number of very expensive people descend upon a trust, will have to be scaled back to some extent. As the noble Baroness intimated, I think that we will see a more risk-based inspection model—a bit more like the Ofsted model. I suspect that we will see more unannounced inspections as well, because a large part of the cost of the CQC is not just its direct cost but the indirect costs on the trusts preparing for the inspections. Sometimes the degree of preparation undermines the validity and insightfulness of the actual inspection.

I take on board entirely the strictures of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. This is another expense when times are extremely hard, but it reflects the fact that the scope of the CQC is now broader than it was three years ago, and the need to have full cost recovery over a fairly limited time.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, again, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate and to the Minister. I have no problems whatever with the wider scope of the CQC’s responsibility, which inevitably has an impact on its cost base. Nor do I object to full cost recovery as a principle, because that has obviously been accepted by Governments over many years.

My complaint is that it is hugely insensitive for the Government to insist, which is essentially what has happened, that the NHS and parts of the care sector had to move to two-year full cost recovery. I note the alleviation given to GPs and domiciliary care, but I am puzzled that residential care was not given the same amelioration, given that, as we know, the care sector is in such a parlous state at the moment. We obviously look forward to the CQC strategy; I am sure it is right that it should be more risk based.

I very much welcomed the intervention of the noble Earl, Lord Lindsay. The United Kingdom Accreditation Service does its role very well. I also recently met RDB Star Rating, which is based in Sussex although it covers a number of institutions nationwide. It also made the point to me that, if you have a strong accreditation system, not only is there greater ownership by the bodies being accredited—because they have volunteered for it—but it ought to tie into the CQC process. The Minister has encouraged the noble Earl to meet the CQC; I hope that he might encourage the CQC to meet the noble Earl to see whether further progress can be made, because we clearly ought to take up the offer in relation to accreditation, if at all possible.

This has been a good debate. It is not at all a criticism of the CQC but of the Government and their approach, and it has been useful to raise those issues.