CQC IT failure means 500 draft inspection reports currently ‘lost’

About 500 CQC reports are currently ‘stuck’ in the watchdog’s system and cannot be retrieved due to IT issues, MPs have been told.

Yesterday CQC chief executive Sir Julian Hartley and chair Ian Dilks were questioned by the health and social care committee in light of the damning review into the regulator published last year.

Sir Julian said that IT problems with the new system implemented by the CQC in the last few years have caused staff ‘deep distress’ and ‘a real sense that it was stopping them from doing their jobs’.

He also said that problems with the new IT platform were identified as the ‘number one reason’ for low productivity, staff stress, low morale and poor wellbeing, with 33% of staff experiencing ‘physical and mental distress’ as a result of the implementation of the new system.

Mr Dilks told the committee that there have been instances in which CQC staff have been unable to retrieve their work from the system, an issue affecting about 500 draft reports currently lost in the system.

Mr Dilks said: ‘Just to give you an example of how unbelievable this is, it is possible for staff to start work on a report and put it inside the system, and then get stuck.

‘We have got reports now that go back some months that are stuck inside the system, people cannot get them back out.

‘There is no way on Earth that anyone I’m sure would have designed a system to say “we are going to lose that report in the middle of it”.’

When asked by MPs to explain what this exactly meant and how it happened, Mr Dilks added: ‘I can’t actually sit here and tell you exactly how that happened, I’m just giving an illustration of the sort of difficulties.’

After his appointment as new chief executive last year, Sir Julian commissioned an independent IT expert to look at the issues in the system and produce ‘an urgent review’ which will be considered by the board next month.

Mr Dilks added: ‘We literally just had the findings so it’s too early to comment on that, but clearly one of the things we have to take account of is how do we progress from here.

‘Clearly as part of that there has to be a much greater attention to working with users and make sure that we do not have a repeat of these quite extraordinary system failures.’

In the same hearing, CQC leaders were also asked if single-word assessments are ‘fit for purpose’, to which Sir Julian said that these will be kept under review.

It comes after a CQC internal review recommended that the use of one-word ratings for GP practices should be evaluated, and GP leaders asked the BMA to negotiate the removal of the CQC’s single-word ratings when assessing general practice services. The RCGP also called for an end to ‘simplistic’ one-word ratings currently used in CQC inspections.

Sir Julian said: ‘A major teaching hospital is very different to a GP practice, or a care home – I think single-word ratings do offer a level of clarity and simplicity for the public and that’s certainly something that we’ve got to factor in.

‘I think our priority is to put our house in order on some of those key basics and then keep under review the idea of how we give a single-word or two-word judgment.’

Sir Julian also admitted that the CQC has a backlog of 5,000 notifications of concern, including provider notifications of ‘major issues and incidents and changes’ as well as notifications of ‘major issues of concern’ from staff and members of the public.

Last year, a major review into the CQC commissioned by the Government confirmed ‘significant failings’ in the way the watchdog operates. The damning review found that CQC ‘lost its credibility’ within the services and providers it inspects, with a ‘lack of consistency’ and transparency observed in CQC ratings of GP practices.

Another internal review, carried out by the CQC itself, at the same time found that a ‘fundamental reset of the organisation is needed’ and that the regulator ‘will never be able to deliver on its objectives’ if the current structure is maintained.

Following the findings, the RCGP called for a temporary pause of CQC routine inspections of GP practices, although it stressed inspections of practices where patient safety concerns have been raised must continue.