Safety recommendation
It is recommended that the Care Quality Commission amends all appropriate core service frameworks to include risk controls identified in this report, to mitigate the risk of significant abnormal findings not being followed up.
Response:
CQC agree that effective fail-safe processes such as those identified in the report are important in helping protect the safety of patients, but that it is, of course, not possible or appropriate for CQC inspectors to review all aspects of every service in detail on every inspection, and we therefore need to be selective as to what we include in our assessment frameworks.
However in light of the report we would consider what changes we could make to our core service frameworks to include aspects of fail-safe processes where appropriate and where we will be able to collect sufficient evidence to drive improvement. This would be taken forward as part of the wider work CQC is currently undertaking in relation to lightening the load work and review of frameworks.
However, the IR(ME)R Team and the Hospitals Policy Team regularly review the diagnostic imaging frameworks to make sure they are kept up to date and include any relevant new standards or appropriate guidance such as this HSIB recommendation.
Response received on 26 November 2019.