Caroline Barker, Author at Ridouts Solicitors

Caring for the carers: culture is crucial – As published in Caring Times

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

At Ridouts, we advise providers about how they can challenge draft inspection reports, Warning Notices, Notices of Proposals and Decisions – we challenge CQC’s findings; the incorrect facts; and the incorrect interpretation of facts and judgments. In addition, we are often asked how a provider can counter what staff have told CQC during an inspection …

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Ridout Report -Can technology make the CQC more intelligent?

The Ridout Report / By Caroline Barker

CQC’s Strategy for 2016 to 2021 sets out four priorities it will focus on in order to achieve a more targeted, responsive and collaborative approach to regulation, so more people get high-quality care. One of those four priorities is to “deliver an intelligence-driven approach to regulation”. CQC hopes, that by being more intelligence-driven, it will …

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Prosecutions – is CQC finding its feet?

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust has become the sixth health and social care provider and the first NHS Trust to be prosecuted by the Care Quality Commission (“CQC”) for failure to provide safe care and treatment. On 12 October 2017 the Trust was sentenced, and a fine of £125,000 was handed down (the Court’s starting …

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Ridout Report – You’re going to need an iPad before CQC registers you – The musings of a CQC Board member, or a sign of things to come?

The Ridout Report / By Caroline Barker

At the March 2017 CQC Board Meeting the consultation on ‘Registering the Right Support’ guidance was highlighted by a Board member as a document setting “out very specific conditions under which [CQC] would register housing for people with learning disabilities so there couldn’t be more than…five or six people in a unit. [CQC] said you …

Ridout Report – You’re going to need an iPad before CQC registers you – The musings of a CQC Board member, or a sign of things to come? Read More »

Healthcare Business- Trial by Media – providers’ reputations are at risk

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

CQC are and have, for some time, been pressing the Department of Health for a change in regulation to allow it to publish information about enforcement action it has taken which “forced improvement”. This was discussed at the CQC December 2016 Board Meeting where concern was expressed that CQC could not publish information about enforcement …

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Healthcare Business: They think it’s all over…

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 CQC can take steps to cancel a provider’s registration on an urgent basis on application to a magistrates’ court. Such powers can be taken against a single home registrant or in order to cancel a provider’s ability to carry on any regulated activities everywhere, by cancelling the …

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HSJ Channel Insight and Influence: Corporate Manslaughter: The stakes are high

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

In January 2016 Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust will go on trial for corporate manslaughter in respect of a death of a patient following an emergency caesarean section at the Pembury Hospital in October 2012. The Trust has been charged alongside two anaesthetists who have been charged in their individual capacity with gross negligence …

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Healthcare Business: “Out of date” inspection reports – is it in the public interest to publish?

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

CQC has inspected your home. You wait to receive the draft report. You wait and you wait. You wait some more. Finally the draft report arrives and it is not good news, your rating is unfavourable. But your draft report has arrived three months after the inspection. Your Home is not the same as it …

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Healthcare Business: Restricting admissions – how long can CQC sustain the argument?

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

CQC’s enforcement action has ramped up a notch over the last few months. At Ridouts we are seeing increased numbers of Notices of Proposal (“NOP”). As well as proposals to remove locations, a popular proposal is to add a condition of registration to restrict admissions of service users. Sometimes end dates for that restriction are …

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Healthcare Business: Does Ofsted lack transparency and accountability? Mar 2014, Caroline Barker

Articles & Publications / By Caroline Barker

At Ridouts we have seen an increasingly aggressive Ofsted and more and more clients are concerned about inspectors’ conduct and in turn the judgements reached at inspection visits. Ofsted give providers 5 working days after receiving the draft inspection report to make factual accuracy comments before an inspection report is published. However, Ofsted are adamant …

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Caroline Barker

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