Safety recommendation
HSIB recommends that the Care Quality Commission reviews and adapts its assessment model for NHS hospital estates to ensure greater scrutiny of estates related safety concerns.
Response:
We welcome this report, which shines a light on an estates issue that can have a significant impact on patient safety. We are committed to working with partners, including NHS Estates, to ensure that where there are concerns about the management and governance of estates issues, we can act upon these in a timely and effective manner.
As we develop our new regulatory model, we will ensure that the management and governance of estates issues is reflected in our trust level well-led framework. We will explore ways of working with NHS Estates (and other relevant partners such as the Health and Safety Executive) that enable them to raise with us any assurance concerns they have, and provide the technical expertise to help us respond to such risks appropriately.
Establish contact with the NHS Estates team with regards to the recommendations made to our respective organisations in this report . Timeline: September 2021 complete.
Develop options with NHS Estates for how the data and assurance gained through the NHS Premises Assurance Model (PAM) can be utilised in our new regulatory approach. This will focus on:
- How the analysis NHS Estates carries out on the PAM can be shared with us, so that there is clear and early identification of possible risks
- What specialist support and advice NHS estates can provide inspection teams in responding to these risks.
Timeline: December 2022.
Response received on 17 September 2021.