The CQC is planning a reduction of 400 full-time-equivalent staff positions by 2020, including reducing the number of inspectors.
The regulator repsonsible for GP practice inspections and ratings said the move would save £19m from the budget, for when it becomes entirely funded by provider fees.
The CQC’s current budget allows for 3,400 FTE staff, but board papers released earlier in the week revealed plans to ‘ensure CQC improves its efficiency and effectiveness with around 3000 employees… by 2020’.
As previously reported by Pulse this week, the CQC is planning an overspend of £700,000 on its primary care inspection budget up until the end of March because it will have to rely on additional staff, or so-called ‘bank inspectors’, in order to complete all inspections by an end-of-year target date.
But the board papers suggested that the cull in employed staff could mean falling back on bank inspectors to a greater extent, as it said this would mean ‘drawing on its flexible pool of special advisors and bank inspectors’.
The papers said: ‘During this time we will see our main source of funding switch from the Department of Health to fees paid by providers.
‘[W]e are therefore acutely aware of the need to use our resources as efficiently as possible to ensure we are providing value for money.’
It comes as the CQC is currently consulting on plans for massive hikes in GP practice fees as part of the mandate to make its inspection regime self-funding.
