REGULATION: A West Midlands acute trust is appealing against the ‘proportionality’ of its recent Care Quality Commission inspection, HSJ has been told.

  • Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust to appeal against “triangulation and proportionality” of CQC process
  • Three-quarters of domains were rated “good” or “outstanding”
  • Overall the trust was rated “requires improvement”

The Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust has launched an appeal against its rating of “requires improvement”, issued in September.

A trust spokesman confirmed it had started an appeal on the grounds of “triangulation and proportionality” related to the processes of the CQC and its inspection team.

New Cross Hospital

Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals Trust was rated ‘requires improvement’ for whether it was well led and safe

The trust was inspected over four days in June, including visits to New Cross and West Park hospitals.

Three-quarters of the domains inspected by the CQC were rated “good” or “outstanding”. 

However, safety in medical care at New Cross was rated “inadequate” and care in the same area was rated “requires improvement”.

Overall, the trust was rated “requires improvement” over whether it was well led and safe.

Following the inspection, the trust challenged the CQC over 294 factual inaccuracies in its draft report. The regulator accepted 205 but this did not result in any changes to the ratings.

A trust spokesman said: “The trust is appealing the results of the recent CQC inspection. It is appealing on grounds of process and specifically triangulation and proportionality.

“The trust is in early discussions with the CQC and has been allocated a case manager, and is awaiting further details around the process and timetable.”

A CQC spokeswoman said it was not able to give details about the appeal, but added: “Where a provider believes that we have not followed the published process properly and wants to request a review of one or more of their ratings, they must tell us of their intention to do so within five working days once the report has published.

“We would then send the provider instructions for submitting their request for review and these must be received within 15 working days of publication of the report.”

Royal Wolverhampton is currently facing an investigation commissioned by the NHS Trust Development Authority over concerns around the way it handled whistleblowing concerns related to mortality rates.

Source

Information supplied to HSJ

Source date

October 2015

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