CQC inspections
if this is not accepted during the inspection, it may be wise to email it to the inspector immediately following that inspection. Where a service has an electronic system, it would also be advisable to insist on showing an inspector how to navigate the system and access and understand the appropriate records. While inspectors may be familiar with certain well-known electronic systems, these are often tailored to individual services and vary between providers. Providers often tell us that inaccurate findings are based on an inspector’s misunderstanding of how their systems work, including where to find key information or documents or how to interpret these correctly. Where this evidence is ignored in an inspection report, a provider’s proactive response to these issues during the inspection may avoid the need for unnecessary challenges and if an inspector does not appropriately engage with a provider, this could assist providers in making robust challenges about the accuracy and completeness of the inspector’s inspection judgments and the reasonableness of the inspector’s approach and overall conduct of the inspection. It is therefore important that a provider ensures that they provide or offer as much information and evidence to the inspector as possible before the end of the
inspection process. If certain information or documents are contained off-site, providers should offer to obtain the information or documents on the day of the inspection and, at the very least, make them aware of their existence and provide them to the inspector as soon as practicably possible thereafter. Where the inspector requests other information which is not immediately available, the provider should ensure that this is obtained as soon as possible and emailed to the inspector before the inspection process is concluded. Once the inspection window comes to a close, it becomes much more difficult to provide information which will determine the initial inspection judgments within the draft report. This will then usually have to be dealt with as part of a provider’s factual accuracy challenge.
How can a provider challenge a CQC draft inspection report? After a service is inspected, the provider will receive a draft inspection report setting out the findings from that inspection, the ratings in each inspected key question, and any breaches of regulations. A provider is given 10 working days to challenge the factual accuracy of the draft report. This is an opportunity for providers to challenge the accuracy and completeness of the evidence on which the inspector’s
ratings and judgments are based. This includes typographical or numerical errors, the accuracy of the evidence relied on, and any additional or omitted information that should be considered.
This is an important process and should
be utilised by any care provider who is not satisfied with the factual accuracy and completeness of the evidence on which the ratings within the report are based. That said, providers need to ensure that they have solid grounds for any challenge – each challenge to the report must be set out clearly and concisely and be supported with robust documentary evidence. If no challenge is made to a draft report and it is subsequently published, there is a presumption that the contents of the published report is entirely accurate and accepted by the provider. Where the findings within the inspection report are later used as the basis for a decision by the CQC to pursue enforcement action, it is then much more difficult for providers to dispute the need for enforcement action on the basis of unchallenged inspection findings.
Beware of the deadline! We often find that providers are incorrectly advised of their deadline for making a factual accuracy challenge to their draft inspection reports by their inspectors. When issuing a draft report, providers will usually receive a letter accompanying the draft report, both of which are sent by email. The CQC’s letter states: “Once you have received the email with the draft report, you have 10 working days from the date of the email to submit…”.
In many of the cases that we have dealt with, the covering letter has often been dated one or more days before the email enclosing the report is actually sent. In light of this, many inspectors advise providers that their deadline is much earlier than it actually is based on the date of the covering letter rather than the date of receipt of the email. We can only assume that the CQC’s internal systems are calculating the deadline from the date their letter is generated, on the basis that it is assumed that the letter will be sent to the provider on the same day. This has meant that inspectors have been demanding factual accuracy challenges before the 10 working day period has expired, advising providers that they are out of time for the submission of their challenge, or proceeding to publish reports that have not yet been finalised through this process.
February 2024
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