The Care Quality Commission has decided to shrink its hospital inspection team in order to free up money to spend on new technology. CQC’s overall budget will be cut by £6m in 2019/20 due to the cuts. This will release money for internal transformation and meet a reduction in funding from the government.
It is understood the investment in technology will help the CQC to move away from old-fashioned IT systems and manual processes.
Ian Trenholm, Chief Executive of CQC, has said:-
“Our overall budget will reduce by £6m in 2019-20, in line with the [2015] comprehensive spending review. As discussed in public board meetings and through staff briefings, we are also investing a portion of our resource in ensuring that our inspectors have the tools they need to do their jobs as effectively as possible – so that more of their time is spent protecting people and helping providers to improve, not wrestling with out-of-date technology.”
