How Does CQC Judge the State of Care in England 2021/2022?
CQC has published its latest assessment of the State of Care in England. What do they view as the failings and the priorities and future challenges?
Who are CQC?
The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and social care in England, aiming to ensure good quality care is available to all. They regularly carry out inspections of health and care providers, make assessments of quality and publish their reports and findings. They take action to try to bring about improvements in substandard services.
Once a year they publish their 'State of Care' report, providing an overview of where progress has been made and aspects of care which require improvement.
State of Care 2021/22
Describing the health and social care system as 'gridlocked', their latest State of Care publication has identified the following areas of concern:
- Patients being stuck in hospital due to lack of social care provision
- Inability to access primary care services increasing pressure on emergency care services
- Staff shortages, described as 'a risk to staff and patient safety', due to both retention and recruitment problems
- Inequality in access and quality of care across health and care services. In relation to elective care and cancer treatment, the survey found that 'people living in the worst performing areas were more than twice as likely to wait more than 18 weeks for treatment as people in the best performing areas'.
- The quality of maternity care being 'not good enough', and 'action to ensure all women have access to safe, effective and truly personalised maternity care has not been sufficiently prioritised'
- 'care for people with a learning disability or autistic people is still not good enough'
- 'Mental health services are struggling to meet the needs of children and young people'
Among the many comments of concern is CQC's observation about the ability of the NHS to cope with emergency needs:
'People in need of urgent care are at increased risk of harm due to long delays in ambulance response times, waiting in ambulances outside hospitals and long waiting times for triage in emergency departments.'
Medical negligence and compensation
If substandard medical care leaves a patient with a worse long-term outcome than would have been the case with an acceptable level of care, they are entitled, by law, to make a claim for compensation for the impact of that negligence.
If you or a loved one are struggling with the consequences of substandard medical care, contact Glynns Solicitors to speak with a medical negligence specialist about the possibility of making a claim for compensation.
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