Rob Papworth

Strategic Commissioning Manager

Tithebarn House

High Newham Court

Hardwick

Stockton-on-Tees

TS19 8RH

25 August 2015

Dear Mr Papworth,

Thank you for your letter of 14 August 2015 in relation to your concerns about the exchange of information and the publication of reports for registered services in the Stockton area.

The Tees Valley team have gone through a period of difficulty over the last year and have had long term sick, maternity leave and vacancies to carry. We have now completed a recruitment campaign and 2 new inspectors have commenced with the team this week.

In terms of the information sharing meetings I am aware Jackie Herring was the lead inspector and she transferred to another directorate in April 2015. Chris Wharton (Inspection Manager) has advised that Debbie Howe is now the lead inspector and will continue to attend these meetings and will have a second inspector to attend in the event she cannot. Debbie has, I understand provided you with a list of inspectors who are responsible for the Stockton services and explained that this will change once the new inspectors commence and you will be provided with a new list once that has been agreed.

As you will be aware we have introduced a new approach to social care inspections which is designed to ensure that the views and experiences of people using services are central to our inspections. On 1 October 2014 we introduced our new ways of working to all social care services focusing on five key questions: is the service safe, is it effective, is it responsive to people’s needs, is it caring and is it well led, as well as awarding ratings to services.

Our inspections are almost always unannounced which means that the provider is not aware that we will be visiting. We plan our inspections based on risk and in order to make that judgement we collate all the intelligence we have from various sources such as Healthwatch, the Local Authority and Clinical Commissioning Group. We also look at the numbers of concerns, safeguarding incidents and other untoward incidents to help us decide when we will visit a service. Additionally we collate information from the public and people who use services where they have sent information through our “tell us your experience.”

As this is a new approach it has taken some time for inspectors to get used to the new methodology and a different way of writing reports. This has resulted in some delays in the publication of reports and we acknowledge this and apologise, however this has been a CQC wide issue and not isolated to the Tees Valley team. You should begin to see an improvement in this area now that the new approach is embedded in practice.

I hope this letter answers the questions raised and has given you assurance that we are working hard to improve the timeliness and the production and publication of reports.

If you would like further detail on any of the points above, or have any further questions, the local inspection manager, Chris Wharton, would be happy to speak with you. Chris can be contacted by e mail at or by telephone on 03000616161.

Once again thank you for writing to us and raising these concerns with CQC and I hope this response is helpful to you.

Yours sincerely,

Ros Sanderson

Head of Inspection

Chairman: David Prior Chief Executive: David Behan CBE

Registered office: Finsbury Tower, 103-105 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TG