Safety recommendation
It is recommended that the Care Quality Commission amends its inspection criteria to ensure that interprison transfer processes are fully encapsulated within the inspection schedule to assure the provision of care throughout.
Response:
We have taken some short to medium term actions:
- We have worked closely with Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) on this throughout the investigation process and have flagged up the recommendation and asked them for suggestions for how we could improve the inspection of transfer medication.
- We have discussed the recommendation with the Nursing and Quality lead for Health and Justice at NHS England, who is also considering how commissioners can impact on practice. We meet quarterly so this will remain on the agenda so that we can learn from each other.
- The Health and Justice team are fully briefed to give this area more focus during inspections.
Longer term, fundamentally, the key lines of enquiry (KLOEs) and thus the framework need to be reviewed and strengthened. A review of the handbook was planned for this year but we are nearly out of time. Overall, it will be dependent on how we plan to inspect in the future.
Response received on 8 November 2019.