Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how long it took between the Care Quality Commission's inspection of Bridgewater NHS Trust and the production of the report on that inspection.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care. The CQC has provided the following information.

The CQC inspected Bridgewater Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust between May and June 2016.

The Trust is made up of particular size and complexity and as a result of this the post inspection and pre-publication processes took longer than the usual set timescale and were not completed until October 2016.

The quality checking element of the nine separate inspection reports that were completed were presented at four separate National Quality Assurance Group (NQAG) panels rather than the usual one. Although this part of the process could have been completed in a shorter timeframe, it was considered important to maintain consistency within the NQAG panel and so additional time was added to the process.

The draft inspection report was sent to the Trust on 2 November 2016 for factual accuracy checks and was returned to the CQC on 2 December with factual accuracy comments and a request from the Trust for CQC to consider further information. The further information was scheduled to be considered at a further NQAG panel in line with CQC pre-publication processes.

The NQAG panel was set up for 9 December 2016 but this was cancelled due to the panel Chair being called away on urgent business. The panel was rescheduled for 21 December 2016.

On 20 December 2016 the Trust forwarded an additional set of further information for the CQC to consider the day before the NQAG panel was due to take place. The panel Chair felt more time was needed to consider this additional further information and as a result the NQAG panel was rescheduled to 11 January 2017.

After the NQAG panel took place the CQC prepared the inspection report for final publication and contacted the Trust on 18 January 2017 to inform them that the report would be published on 23 January 2017.

On that same day, 18 January, the Trust contacted the CQC with a request to delay publication as their Chief Executive Officer was on leave as from 20 January 2017 and wished to be available when the inspection report was published to support his staff and team. The CQC agreed to this request.

The report is currently scheduled to be published in February 2017.