Report finds CQC ‘blind spot’ re: patient safety alerts

Published: 14 Feb 2014

A new report by AvMA  Implementation, Monitoring and Regulation of Patient Safety Alerts has found that Care Quality Commission is failing to take any action over NHS trusts who fail to implement patient safety alerts.  Although overall compliance with alerts has improved dramatically since the charity started publishing reports on this, information obtained under the Freedom of Information Act established that even the trust with the worst record – Southend University Hospital NHS Foundation Trust – had not received a single warning from the CQC or any other body over its non-compliance.  Southend had failed to comply with a total of 7 alerts as at the end of January 2014.  Two of these alerts were five years past the deadline for completion, and a further two were over three years past the deadline.  Despite this the trust board had not even discussed its non-compliance with alerts and on its website, the CQC gives a complete bill of health to the trust.  Click here for full press release