Wes Streeting says health watchdog not fit for purpose
England's health and social care watchdog requires substantial overhaul and is currently inadequate, according to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has promised swift measures to regain public trust. Mr Streeting was reacting to an independent review into the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the body that monitors and inspects all health and adult social care providers. The review highlighted major internal deficiencies within the CQC that hinder its capability to detect substandard performance in hospitals, care homes, and GP practices. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00What we've seen is an utterly damning indictment on the regulator that's meant to safeguard
00:07patient standards and safety in health and in social care settings, and whether it's
00:13one in five health and care providers not having received a rating, or the fact that
00:18we've seen hospitals not being inspected for over a decade, or unqualified inspectors and
00:26inexperienced inspectors being sent into health and care settings with little experience
00:29of the issues that they're confronted with. This is, I think, a stunning failure and speaks
00:36to the culture of a conspiracy of silence and brushing things under the carpet that
00:42we ended up with under the last government, because if they were honest about the scale
00:46of the challenge, they'd have to be held accountable for their own failures. We've got to move
00:50quickly, making sure the CQC has the right permanent leadership, making sure the public
00:55are informed in a very honest and transparent way about the failures and the lack of confidence
01:02we have in the ratings that the CQC has provided, and also providing people with that reassurance
01:06that we're going to move quickly to turn the situation around.