Care England chief says 'refund should be given' for care homes given inaccurate CQC grading

A number of care and nursing homes are to be reinspected after the care watchdog found almost 40 inspection reports contained duplicate material.

All of the homes were in the north of England except for one in London.

During an audit inspection with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), duplicate material was found in 78 reports, with identical quotations from patients or sections of evidence pasted into reports about different care homes.

In 40 cases, the CQC removed the offending material but was confident that the overall findings of the report were unaffected, allowing the grades of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate to stand.

For the remaining 38, the CQC felt that the homes would need to be reinspected in order to be “confident in the ratings and findings”. The ratings will revert to the grade awarded in the previous inspection until then.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England said: “The recent article about the CQC reports is very worrying for care providers and the general public. The news that CQC inspectors have been cutting and pasting their reports is quite scandalous.

“Care providers have invested heavily in improving quality, transparency and developing open cultures and have a right to expect the same from the regulator, particularly since providers are paying significant amounts of money for this service.

"It is vital for citizens, and for care providers that the judgement of CQC is both fair and impartial and is based on the evidence that they see during inspections."

He added: “Citizens also need to be confident in the CQC assessments, because this is the primary source of information when they are making life changing decisions about care.

‘Care providers are reliant on the CQC reports to be accurate’

The CQC has identified three individuals who were responsible for the duplication, all of whom were part of inspection teams and were tasked to feed their evidence back to the main inspector compiling the final report.

Two were experts by experience, former patients with experience of treatment in a particular type of institution. They can be asked to talk to residents to ask their views on the quality of care they have received.

It was found that these individuals, who were employed through an agency, had provided identical quotations from residents across different reports. The third individual was a specialist adviser employed to support the inspection team.

Professor Green said: “Care providers are reliant on the CQC to be open and transparent, and for their reports to be accurate.

"If there have to be re-inspections of some services, a refund on the regulatory fees paid by providers should be given because the service has not been delivered to the required standard”.

CQC chief inspector of adult and social care, Kate Terroni said: "We have investigated an issue relating to duplicate material used by two experts by experience and one specialist adviser in a number of CQC inspection reports.

"As soon as we became aware of these issues the individuals concerned were immediately removed from inspection activity."

She added: "Following close analysis and additional peer review, the majority of these reports have been republished without the inclusion of these quotes as they did not affect the rating of the service. There are also a number of locations where, following review, we have decided to reinspect to ensure that the public voice is fully reflected.

"We are taking all actions necessary to reduce the risk of this happening again."