The Care Quality Commission’s struggle to employ enough staff to inspect all acute trusts by the end of next year has been flagged up as a “key risk” by its chief executive.

The watchdog’s ongoing recruitment difficulties come despite a concerted effort to bolster its contingent of staff and a decision to slash the number of planned inspections.

As reported by HSJ, the CQC “recalibrated” its plans in July after staff raised concerns about stress caused by their workload.

David Behan

The CQC would not have a full complement of inspectors until the end of 2015, David Behan predicted

The scale of the CQC’s recruitment struggles were revealed in board papers last week, which showed it currently employed 810 inspectors despite estimates it required 958 by October to keep its inspection programme on track.

While the shortfall has hit inspection programmes across all sectors, CQC board papers indicate that its mental health and London region primary care inspections teams are particularly affected.

The papers admit that the shortfall “clearly puts a pressure on delivery of inspections”.

CQC chief executive David Behan described recruitment at the regulator as a “key risk”, predicting it would not have a full complement of inspectors until the end of next year.

“We need to be very, very straight with people that there aren’t a bunch of reinforcements coming over the hill tomorrow,” he said.

However, he added the CQC was still “working on the assumption” that its target of 7,371 inspections would be delivered despite the staffing shortage.

A spokesman for the regulator told HSJ that as things stand, it was still committed to inspecting all acute trusts by December 2015.

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