By Stephensons

At Stephensons, our specialist CQC lawyers regularly assist care providers nationwide to challenge their CQC inspection reports during the factual accuracy and ratings review processes. In particular, we have achieved success at persuading the CQC to amend, and even remove, parts of an inspection report prior to publication, as well as withdraw entire reports from publication and re-inspect.

We have also successfully challenged multiple ratings at both stages, which in some cases has resulted in the overall rating of a service being changed from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’. Our experienced CQC lawyers have also successfully challenged breaches of the 2014 regulations, which has resulted in an increase in one or more ratings.

In one case, we represented a domiciliary care provider whose overall rating had dropped from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ following a comprehensive inspection. After some investigation, it was established that one whole section of the draft report related to a recent inspection of another provider, which had been conducted by the same CQC inspector. This cast significant doubt on the accuracy and completeness of the inspector’s overall findings. In addition, we submitted that there was insufficient consideration and inaccurate analysis of evidence available to the inspector on the day of the inspection throughout the report and repeated references to the inspector’s own personal opinions, all of which contravened the CQC’s own policies and procedures. As a result, the CQC agreed to conduct another inspection immediately and withhold publication of the factually inaccurate report.

We have also recently acted for a care home provider who was alleged to have breached two regulations and was rated as ‘requires improvement’. Following the acceptance of a number of robust factual accuracy comments and supporting documentary evidence, the CQC agreed to remove the breaches and increased one rating from ‘requires improvement’ to ‘good’.

In this ever changing regulatory environment, it is important that providers make detailed and supported challenges against any findings that are not accurate or consistent with the CQC’s strategy and framework in order to protect their business and reputation.

If you have received a draft inspection report or wish to challenge your inspection ratings, we can assist you with compiling a robust and detailed response to the CQC to place you in the best possible position.

For a confidential discussion with one of our specialist CQC lawyers, please contact us now on 0333 009 5629 or complete our online enquiry form at our website here.