Following some recently awarded Care Quality Commission (CQC) ‘Outstanding’ ratings at its locations, HCA UK’s divisional vice president of quality, Judi Ingram, reflects on the approach taken to inspection readiness and how this has been embedded and achieved in HCA UK facilities.
HCA Healthcare UK currently has 63% of its acute hospitals rated as ‘Outstanding’ by the CQC. In total, 14 of its CQC registered locations have been rated as ‘Outstanding’, of which seven of these have been obtained since September 2021. This is against the challenging backdrop all healthcare providers have faced with the pandemic restrictions, and in the final months of 2021 preparations for Winter. The recent new regulatory approach of unannounced inspections also brought its own challenges and has required a sharp refocus and rethink in how we could help ensure we were able to demonstrate our outstanding services and care at no or short notice.
Responding to a challenging and changing environment
The CQC launched its latest strategy in 2021 which included a new approach to regulating and monitoring providers. This brought with it a change from pre-notice inspections to unannounced or short notice inspections of our registered locations that had not been previously rated or as part of the CQC’s own quality assurance of their new approach. HCA UK currently has 46 registered sites with a significant number unrated, so we expected significant inspection activity, and we have not been disappointed! Between September 2021 and February 2022, we have hosted inspections at 13 of our sites.
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