NHS trusts 'non-compliant' with quality standards for over two years

According to the health watchdog, 32 hospital locations have been “non-compliant” with one or more of its standards for over two years.

Of this group, 15 are managed by 11 NHS providers (see box, below) and the remaining 17 locations are managed by independent healthcare firms including Spire Healthcare and St Andrew’s Healthcare.

Several of the NHS providers are already under the special measures regime, such as United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust; Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals Trust; and University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust.

The list includes hospitals that have been non-compliant on different standards over time, rather than being non-compliant on a single standard for the whole two year period.

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At the regulator’s monthly board meeting last week, non-executive director Sir Robert Francis described “tolerance of non-compliance for long periods of time” as a “risk to safety”.

He also questioned whether there was a “degree of institutional complacency” within the CQC about non-compliance.

“It becomes a sort of acceptance that this has happened and nothing terrible has happened so far,” Sir Robert said.

“Actually what you’re looking at is a period of risk to which people are being exposed because nothing is being done about these matters by the registered organisation.”

CQC chief executive David Behan admitted the situation was “not acceptable” and said action was being taken to address the issue.

The chief inspector of hospitals, Sir Mike Richards, plans to examine individual reports of each of the hospitals in a bid to identify the reasons for continued non-compliance.

Mr Behan said the regulator’s enforcement capability would also be beefed up to help strengthen its grip on the problem.

Outside of the hospital sector, 205 adult social care and seven primary care locations have been non-compliant for more than two years. Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care, said the new special measures regime being developed for her sector would help to solve the problem of persistently underperforming providers.