News

An ambitious five-year contract worth £800m to provide older peoples services in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough has collapsed eight months after being set up at a cost of £1m to the CCG. The rationale for the collapse was that the contract was not ‘financially sustainable’. The contract included a clause whereby the company would have to …

Largest ever private contract put to tender in NHS collapses Read More »

CQC has found that the Morecambe Bay NHS Trust is no longer inadequate across its services. Consequently it has recommended, within its recently published Inspection Report, that the Trust be removed from the Special Measure regime. The Trust was placed in special measures in July 2013 following concerns over safety and management of its services. …

Morecambe Bay NHS Trust to be taken out of Special Measures Read More »

NICE has recently published a guideline on the transfer of individuals between hospitals and home. This forms essential reading for healthcare workers and it should be noted that CQC uses NICE guidelines to inform the inspection process. The guideline makes several recommendations regarding care plan development prior, during and after admission. It states that healthcare …

New NICE Guideline published on Hospital Transfers Read More »

Sir Michael Wilshaw, Ofsted’s Chief Inspector, has published his fourth annual report on the state of the education sector in England. Primary school standards continue to rise with 85% of schools being rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ a rise of 3% from the previous year. There is an increasing gap between the performance of secondary and …

Secondary school Standards slip in the North and Midlands Read More »

CQC opened a consultation on revisions to its Code of Practice on confidential personal information today. The first version of the Code was published in December 2010 and set out the principles by which CQC would interact with confidential personal information through the course of its daily duties. CQC are seeking opinions on its Code …

CQC consults on use of confidential information Read More »

Ofsted has recently launched its consultation on the new inspection framework for children’s homes.  The consultation proposes tougher measures and extends the evaluation criteria that inspectors will be looking at during inspections. As part of the changes Ofsted have proposed that ‘Good’ will be considered the minimum standard that children and young people should expect …

Ofsted consults on tougher standards for children’s homes Read More »

The cap on spending on Agency staff within the NHS comes into force today with the ambition of saving the NHS £1bn over the next three years. The cap is a limit on paying agency staff excessively over that which an equivalent permanent member of staff would be paid. There is a sliding scale on …

Cap on NHS spending on Agency staff Read More »

Monitor has released figures for NHS England’s spending over the first half of this year. The figures reveal that the NHS is running a deficit of £1.6bn which was ahead of forecasted spending by almost £400 million. The predictions for the deficit for the whole year now stand at £2.2bn. Some have suggested the main …

NHS overspending the biggest on record Read More »

A meeting will take place today between care home owners, councils and related charities to discuss how best to avoid the crisis that will be caused if many care home operators are forced out of the sector. A Local Government Association representative, Councillor Izzi Seccombe said of the crisis: – “There is already evidence that …

Councils and Care Home Owners to meet to discuss the way forward Read More »

In a time of ever-tightening budgets CQC’s spending on travel, food and accommodation has recently come under scrutiny. The CQC’s Hospital inspection team were given a budget of £1.1 million for the year to April 2015 but spent £4.4 million. The figures appear alarming at first but one should note that inspections of hospitals can …

CQC Inspectors blow their budget Read More »