Report into hospital trust inspection due
● A HEALTH watchdog expects to publish its findings of an inspection into Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust around the General Election.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is due to make public its judgement and report on the organisation, which runs Halton General Hospital in Runcorn.
A pre-election period began on Friday, April 21, and a CQC spokesman said though the watchdog has a duty to be ‘politically impartial’, it does affect activities it classes as ‘business as usual’.
The CQC is continuing to carry out visits of health and adult social care services across the country, including planned and follow-up inspections and those in response to concerns.
Though the CQC said it cannot confirm exact dates it expects to publish judgements and reports on NHS organisations – including Warrington And Halton Hospitals – either ‘during or around’ the pre-election period having already carried out its inspections.
The spokesman said: “Similarly, we will continue to publish inspection reports and judgements of adult social care and primary medical care services across the country throughout this period.
“We will continue to publish our findings and judgements of services in our inspections reports, including our ratings of outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate so that providers and the public have clear information about the performance of their local services and providers can make the necessary improvement.
“As the regulator of health and adult social care, our role is to monitor, inspect, and regulate services to make sure people receive safe, high-quality and compassionate care and to encourage improvement. This will continue.”
Warrington And Halton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust was last inspected by the CQC in 2015 and was told overall it ‘requires improvement’ while Halton General Hospital itself was deemed ‘good’ by the watchdog.