Earlier this year and together with NHS Improvement, we sought your views on our joint plans to assess how NHS hospital (non-specialist acute) trusts use their resources.
Following your feedback, as well as testing in seven non-specialist acute trusts, NHS Improvement has published the confirmed use of resources assessment framework, alongside a summary of responses to the consultation.
The framework sets out the key lines of enquiry, prompts and rating characteristics that both CQC and NHS Improvement will use to review how effectively trusts are using their resources to provide high quality, efficient and sustainable care. As well as finance, it will include a review of workforce, estates and facilities.
The 'use of resources' assessments will be introduced from the autumn and will be carried out by NHS Improvement alongside scheduled inspections looking at the quality and safety of care, led by CQC. Following the assessment, NHS Improvement will produce a report with recommendations for improvement, if required and it will propose a 'use of resources' rating of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate to CQC.
Once agreed by CQC, the rating and report will be presented alongside the quality ratings that we already award to hospitals following our inspection on whether their services are safe, caring, effective, responsive to people's needs and well-led.
A further joint consultation is planned for later this year, which will explore how the 'use of resources' ratings could be combined with our ratings on quality.
This work is part of the wider changes we are making to the way we monitor, inspect and rate NHS trusts, which includes fewer comprehensive inspections of whole NHS trusts and more inspections of the specific core services they provide, as well as working more closely with our partners to agree a 'shared view of quality'.