CQC will use AI to prompt inspection but not to ‘catch GPs out’, says chief inspector

A new AI ‘warning system’ to prompt CQC inspections will not be used as a ‘surveillance system wanting to catch people out’, the regulator has said.

Primary care chief inspector Professor Bola Owolabi, a GP in Derbyshire, was addressing Pulse LIVE Newcastle when she offered the reassurance.

Pulse asked whether new ‘rapid response inspections’ based on AI would risk a repeat of the regulator’s widely-criticised ‘intelligent monitoring’ programme from a decade ago.

The 10-year health plan said CQC would implement an AI-powered early warning system to monitor real-time data to flag safety issues. Where problems are detected, inspection teams will be deployed quickly to assess service quality, it suggested.

Professor Owolabi, whose Pulse LIVE address features on the latest episode of our podcast ‘Pulse in Focus’, said: ‘I think the point is about having insight-informed inspections. So whether it’s AI that’s doing it, or whether it’s being done manually, I think the central thesis of that statement is to be insight-informed.

‘For me, I would prefer that somebody came in to inspect my practice and was able to say: “I’ve looked at your diabetes care processes. There are eight diabetes care processes; when compared to the practice of Joe Bloggs down the street, it appears that your patients are probably getting three out of those eight consistently. Help me understand why that is the case.”

‘That’s the sort of level of sophistication of conversation that I would like to have. I think that that’s what that is getting to – that we get to a position where we actually use the plethora of data that we have to generate actionable insight.’

Professor Owolabi went on to express her belief in the importance of using data to identify areas of improvement, and facilitate conversations between inspectors and providers. 

‘One of my GP registrars did a quality improvement project on cardiovascular disease improvement because of what the CVDPREVENT audit said about our practice.

‘Now, if the CQC came into the surgery, and said: “Based on the insights that we looked at before coming into this practice, this is what we found, and that’s why we would like to have a conversation” – I think most people would say that that’s fair enough. 

‘I don’t think it’s a surveillance system that is just wanting to catch people out. It’s just to see whether the quality of care that people are receiving in any given location is the quality of care that all of us would expect for ourselves.’

The primary care chief inspector also acknowledged the ‘challenging and difficult’ era that the CQC had gone through with the publication of Dr Penny Dash’s Government-commissioned review and Professor Sir Mike Richards’s internal one last year.

The reviews concluded that the healthcare watchdog had ‘lost its credibility’, needed to revert back to its previous organisational structure, and have subject-matter experts leading inspections. 

Professor Owolabi, NHS England’s former national director for health inequalities was appointed as as one of four new service-specific chief inspectors prompted by the subsequent reorganisation.

She addressed an audience of GPs giving an update into the CQC’s work since the reviews and its plans for the year, including a return to sector expertise and the upcoming consultation into the assessment framework.

The formal consultation will be followed by ‘early testing and phased improvements’ in late 2025 and into 2026 using ‘early adopters’, before a gradual rollout of the changes next year.

‘We’ve heard you loud and clear. I’ve had a lot to say, along with other GPs, about the assessment framework that we currently use and how it has to be refined and updated, to be more streamlined, and meaningful,’ Professor Owolabi said.

‘It needs to be reflective of what people actually do in the practice. it’s work as it’s done, rather than work as it’s imagined. So please do help us and respond to the consultation.’

Want to hear more from Professor Owolabi’s address at Pulse LIVE? Check out the newest episode of Pulse in Focus: The Podcast for GPs, for clips from the day and discussion of her plans for the CQC. Listen here.