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CQC reviewing all data publications to ‘prevent recurrence of mistakes’

The CQC are reviewing the accuracy of all published data to prevent ‘recurrence’ of the mistakes that saw GP practices incorrectly labelled as a potential risk to patient care, care minister Norman Lamb has said.

The regulator will ‘learn lessons’ from the publication of practices’ risk ratings, Mr Lamb said, after it caused an outcry from GPs and medical leaders about the data, which was later found to be flawed following reports from Pulse.

The CQC subsequently withdrew one indicator and changed four more, leading inspectors to contact 60 practices who were given a higher risk rating to apologise.

Responding to a written parliamentary question on Monday, Mr Lamb also said the CQC would be conducting an internal audit to determine how the flawed indicators came to be included in the first place.

Mr Lamb said: ‘Following the discovery of the mistakes, the CQC’s approach has been to apologise, to address the problem, and learn lessons to prevent a repeat occurrence.’

‘The CQC is now reviewing the quality assurance of all of its outward facing analyses to ensure any necessary actions are taken to prevent a recurrence of the mistakes made. An internal audit by the CQC is also in the process of being commissioned.’

The regulator admitted this week that practices that scored well on the GP patient survey were penalised by the CQC’s ‘intelligent monitoring’ scheme because it got answers ‘the wrong way round’, despite the error having been previously flagged up during testing.