A leading health and social care solicitors has expressed its concern that the CQC is no longer evaluating feedback adequately.

Neil Grant, Partner – Gordons Partnership Solicitors, was commenting on the regulator’s new performance network from the beginning of 2023 that has made a commitment as part of its reform agenda to “deliver regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences of care”.

Grant said the CQC appeared to “moving in a direction where statements from service users, as well as those from families, friends and advocates, will be taken as being the best source of evidence of their lived experiences of care”.

“No one would disagree that feedback from service users, families and friends must be taken into account by CQC as part of regulation,” Grant said. “However, as with any evidence, CQC must consider its reliability. In most cases this will require CQC to corroborate what has been said with other evidence before making a judgement about breach or performance.”

The legal partner highlighted his firm’s successful challenging last year of a warning notice under Regulation 17 (Good governance) on the basis that it contained uncorroborated statements from service users.

“My concern is that CQC no longer evaluates feedback adequately,” Grant said. “It simply publishes it in the inspection report on the basis it is the lived experience of the people making the statements. Therefore, if a service user says the care home is like a prison it will be published without regard to its reliability.”

Grant voiced his further worry concerning CQC’s “unmoderated faith in AI and digital analysis will mean that risk assessments about services will increasingly be computer generated”.

“Inspectors should be given the time and training to be able to evaluate hearsay evidence properly,” Grant said. “Feedback may be the best evidence of lived experience in a particular setting but equally it may be the worst.”

A CQC spokesperson said: “People’s lived experiences remain an essential part of the evidence CQC receives and, as part of our single assessment framework, will be taken into account alongside all other evidence and corroborated to inform a decision.

“Inspection visits will remain central to our regulatory activity, but with extra data and more robust technology they will be more targeted, allowing our inspectors to make better use of their time on site.

“All our regulatory judgements are quality assured and providers will always have the opportunity to view our findings and raise concerns before publication.”