Health Bill [HL]

If a PCT identifies a mistake in the information in a quality account or if the CQC identifies an issue in its indicators, the quality account has to be changed. If a provider does not wish to embarrass itself by publishing inaccurate information, we encourage it to check that information before publication or to be sure of it a local level. The underlying aim of Amendment 45 is to ensure that regulation does not impose an unnecessary burden on service providers. I am sure that all Members of the Committee can agree with that aim. I certainly can, as a clinician working in the health service. We have committed ourselves many times to ensuring that regulation is proportionate. That is why the Health and Social Care Act allows the Care Quality Commission to use any information that it wishes to use when determining whether a provider should be registered. It is also why Section 67 of the Act requires the commission to promote the co-ordination of reviews and assessments and the sharing of information. However, this does not mean that we need to prescribe exactly how the commission should carry out its functions or what place information from accreditation schemes might have alongside other relevant information in enabling the commission to reach a judgment. Members of the Committee may remember the long debates that we had last year about ensuring that the Care Quality Commission is an independent body. We have to ensure that it can act independently, which means that its decision-making processes must be unfettered. It must be able to reach its own judgment on the suitability of a provider to be registered, and it can do that only if it has all the information that it judges to be necessary to determine whether that provider complies with the registration requirements and whether it should apply conditions to a provider’s registration. Accreditation schemes may be developed for very different purposes from registration. As a result, they may focus on different aspects of performance from those on which the Care Quality Commission focuses, or even on driving improvements rather than ensuring that essential levels of safety and quality have been met. Many professional bodies, such as the royal colleges and others, have had a role in accreditations in the past. We cannot expect the commission to use only one piece of information when reaching a decision. Nor can we put into place arrangements that mean that it registers a provider simply because another body, such as a royal college, may have provided that information for accreditation purposes. We must not prevent it from following up any issues identified as part of its data analysis. No matter how good the assessments of others might be, the commission must be free to use all the available information that it feels fit to use, and follow that up in whatever way it sees fit. The commission is required under Section 4 of the Health and Social Care Act to work in a risk-based and proportionate way. It has already committed itself to working closely with partner organisations to develop an approach to registration that draws on existing systems of assurance and sources of information that are relevant to the registration requirements. It is already working with a range of stakeholders to develop its methodologies, as the noble Baroness pointed out earlier, and will consult widely on these in advance of implementing them. I am grateful to the noble Earl for giving me the opportunity to clarify the role of the Care Quality Commission on those two important aspects. I also hope that I have reassured him on the quality assurance of data outside the context of the CQC indicators or the operating framework. If I have done so, I hope that the noble Earl will be able to—