Page 19 - IDF Journal 2023

COMMITTEE ARTICLES
given a provisional rating of Good and this more robust examination of processes at the registration stage is assisting the CQC in preparing the way for it.
Going forward, the five key questions
that ask whether the services you provide are Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led (SECRW) will remain, as
will the four rating categories. However, the KLOEs are being replaced by Quality Statements. The intention is to reduce the overlap and repetition that occurred with the KLOEs, which numbered in excess of 300, to just 34 Quality Statements across the five key questions.
Each key question will have a series
of subjects with Quality Statements attached to them. These statements
are also referred to as We Statements
as they are made from the providers perspective, with the provider explaining how they meet the statement and what evidence they can produce to support their explanations. For example, under SAFE, the Infection and prevention control quality statement is “We assess and manage the risk of infection. We detect and control the risk of it spreading and share any concerns with appropriate agencies promptly.”
Whilst the Single Assessment Framework
and the Quality Statements will apply to all health and social care providers, ‘one size doesn’t fit all’. The CQC have yet to publish the Evidence Category guidance for each sector that will assist the provider in collating the evidence required to support the We Statement answers. This guidance will be crucial because the quality of the evidence will form part of the new scoring system to rate providers. Alongside the Quality Statements, the CQC are introducing six categories for the evidence they will collect. It is the intention for the CQC to score the Quality Statements, evidence for the categories, and their findings relating to the key questions (SECRW). These individual scores will provide an overall score and a rating for the provider.
At the time of writing, there are still many questions waiting to be answered for the independent doctors’ sector. What will be included in the Evidence Category and will it differ from that devised for NHS colleagues? How will the scoring system to determine the rating work? This new regulatory approach has
been designed partly to allow ratings
to be changed quicker - how often will the CQC make those changes? With substantial weight being placed on data to demonstrate the Quality Statements
and provide supporting evidence, and EMIS apparently being the CQC’s preferred practice management software, how will the majority of independent doctors be assessed, as EMIS for private health care is not the market leader in
the independent sector? There is no one practice management software package used in the sector and will doctors feel pressurised into investing into EMIS
for private health care or risk being penalised for not using it?
The IDF has welcomed the opportunity to be in discussion with the CQC around these and other questions during the coming months.
In the meantime, independent doctors should start to review their own internal methodology for measuring the quality
of the care they deliver ie what systems are in place to extract evidence that demonstrates effective quality assurance.
The Quality Statements are available in the members section of the IDF website and the Evidence Categories will also be there when they are published. When the Evidence Categories are available, the IDF will arrange a members’ Q&A session with the CQC and look at other ways of supporting members with this significant change to the regulatory process.
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