On 25 November 2013 CQC reported that, the Government announced as part of its response to the Francis Inquiry the launch of a Reducing Burdens Concordat.
The Concordat i.e. formal agreement has the purpose of asking the Department of Health and its Arms-Length Bodies to reduce the burden on the NHS by only collecting data that is proportionate and has a clear business purpose. The agreement also asks these bodies not to duplicate other data collections but to work through the Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) as the national base for all data and to review regularly the need to collect the data.
CQC is a signatory to the Concordat and welcomes the core principles to reduce unnecessary administrative burden on providers.
What this will mean
According to CQC, there should be greater emphasis on the importance of access to high quality and timely information as a driver of good care which is not, in itself, a burden. CQC believes that a commitment from all parts of the system, including providers, to this over-arching principle would be very helpful.
CQC would welcome, and sign up to, commitments that are about ensuring that data collected has been through a robust ‘value’ test which has been collected in a cost minimising way which reduces the burden to the front line, and that there is a baseline for the total information requirement on providers that is tracked.
Online services
CQC recognises that it must contribute to the lessening of any existing burden and produce a detailed plan for the next 12 months which focuses on their Online Services initiative. CQC state that transforming the customer experience drives many benefits, including improvements in data quality by significantly reducing errors and rejections and efficiencies in application processing.
To date CQC have launched Online Services for the registration of GPs and have piloted death notifications, which providers are required to send us. CQC said they now have processes in place to monitor, inspect and adapt services to drive improvements in these services.
