Poor services have had performance records wiped, admits CQC

Poorly rated services have had their performance records wiped from the Care Quality Commission's website after re-registering with the regulator after changing small details such as their company name, it has admitted.

Poorly rated services have had their performance records wiped from the Care Quality Commission’s website after re-registering with the regulator after changing small details such as their company name, it has admitted.

However, it has said this has only happened in four cases and has denied claims in a BBC investigation that poorly performing services are being allowed to stay open when they should have been closed.

The BBC probe examined what had happened to some of the93 services the regulator had said had closed following enforcement action or a poor rating.

The CQC admitted that in four of these cases, poorly rated services had not closed, but had had a change in status, such as an alteration to the company’s name or address.

In such circumstances, the service must re-register with the CQC to ensure that it is meeting essential standards, but this means that its past performance records are wiped from the CQC website.

“The BBC news story ‘Care homes ‘closed’ for poor standards remain open’ gives the impression that CQC allows homes to remain open that should have been closed. This is not the case. We issued press release based on data we now find to contained errors. These errors gave the impression that a small proportion of poor homes had been closed by us, when in fact they had only closed in order to change their status.

“If a home changes its status it would need to be re-registered, which means we have to be assured that it adheres to essential standards. This can also mean that the homes past history does disappear from our website, an issue we are actively seeking a solution for.”

The BBC investigation will be run on Radio 4’s File on 4 at 8pm this evening.

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