Minister: Not a priority to consider ending use of one-word healthcare ratings
Calls to consider scrapping the use of one-word ratings by the health watchdog for adult social services are “not a priority”, the Government has said.
Labour MP Josh Fenton-Glynn warned that the current approach used by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) creates “undue stress” for social services staff and promotes “box-ticking over real improvement”.
Health minister Karin Smyth left the door open to considering a change in future but said it is currently not a priority.
The CQC is the independent regulator of all health and social care services in England and is responsible for carrying out inspections.
Most of its assessment reports include an overall rating and there are four given to health and social care services: outstanding, good, requires improvement, and inadequate.
Ms Smyth told Health questions in the House of Commons: “We’ve made clear in response to the report by Dr Penny Dash that the CQC is not fit for purpose and requires significant reform.
“We’ve increased our oversight of the CQC to ensure implementation of the recommendations in Dr Dash’s review and we’ll continue to monitor the CQC’s progress through this period of improvement.
“We’re also supporting the swift and efficient recruitment of CQC’s leadership roles, including the new chief executive, Julian Hartley, who started in December.”
Mr Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley), a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, said: “It’s inarguable that CQC needs some improvement and many who run care services in local authorities have little confidence in their performance.
“I wonder if (Ms Smyth) would agree with me that we could go some way to improving how it’s viewed by looking at the use of single-word assessments, which create undue stress in social services leads and have been raised by the Dash Review as insufficient in supporting local authorities to improve – promoting box-ticking over real improvement and giving little information to members of the public on the quality of social services provision.”
Ms Smyth, in her reply, said: “Currently a review of one or two-word ratings is not a priority but that will be kept under review.”
A review into the operational effectiveness of the CQC, led by Dr Dash, found a “lack of clarity” regarding how ratings are calculated.
It stated: “Ratings matter – they are used by users and their friends and family, and they are a significant driver of staff recruitment and retention. They need to be credible and transparent.”
In September, the Government announced that single-headline Ofsted grades for schools were to be scrapped with immediate effect.
Ofsted also inspects children’s social care providers and it is understood single-word ratings for those establishments will be done away with in 2026.
David Fothergill, chairman of the Local Government Association’s community wellbeing board, said while assessment and regulation “are both important and helpful in driving improvements to services, single-word or phrase judgments cannot ever adequately capture the complexity of adult social care and the work councils do to meet their legal obligations”.
He added: “The Government must ensure that the assurance process is, and remains, productive and supportive for councils. Sufficient time must be given to learn the lessons from councils’ experiences as more go through the assessment process.
“Working with people who draw on care and support, councils and care providers, the Government also needs to urgently develop and implement a fully costed, long-term, sustainable plan to fund social care. Investment and reform are critical for bringing about real change and better outcomes for people.”
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