Last November and together with NHS Improvement, we asked for your views on how we should report on and rate how well non-specialist acute NHS trusts are using their resources to provide high quality, efficient and sustainable care.
Following feedback from members of the public, healthcare providers and other stakeholders we have updated our guidance, which confirms our joint approach and summarises the responses you shared with us.
The guidance confirms the process that CQC will use to turn the findings and rating proposed by NHS Improvement following their assessment of the trust’s use of resources, into a final rating and outlines how the findings and ratings from use of resources assessments will be finalised through the quality assurance, factual accuracy and approval process used by CQC following its scheduled inspections of non-specialist acute trust services.
Also, the guidance confirms that the use of resources assessments will be considered as a sixth key question – alongside CQC’s own questions on quality covering safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. Like CQC’s five questions, use of resources will be given a rating of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate.
The ratings on the five key questions on quality will continue to be combined to generate a single rating on quality for NHS trusts.
As well as this and for the first time, quality and use of resources assessments will be brought together. Equal weight will be given to the six trust-level ratings questions to generate a combined rating at the trust level.
NHS trusts will continue to be required to display their ratings prominently, such as on their websites and across their services. Also, all ratings will continue to be available on this website.
The use of resources assessments are designed to improve understanding of how effectively and efficiently trusts are using their resources and look at aspects such as finances, workforce, estates and facilities, technology and procurement.
NHS Improvement began its use of resources assessments of non-specialist acute trusts last October using its assessment framework. Since then, we have published NHS Improvement’s use of resources assessments of three non-acute specialist trusts and have awarded a ‘shadow’ use of resources ratings for each of these.
From now on, all trusts that are assessed for their use of resources will be awarded a formal use of resources rating, a quality rating and a combined rating at the trust level.