CQC Wasted £99 million on Failed “Transformation”
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- Published: Tuesday, 25 March 2025 07:33
- Written by Peter Ingle
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GDPUK readers may have seen posts chronicling recent difficulties with the CQC. A failure of the portal required to communicate with the regulator has not been the only challenge.
Delays in arranging inspections for new premises and services, mean that the CQC has made a direct contribution to prolonging the dental access crisis. Projects left on hold waiting for the CQC include a charitable mobile unit which could be helping some of London’s most marginalised inhabitants – including the homeless.
According to the Health Service Journal, what was described as a “Transformation Programme” and cost £99 million, was the cause of the IT failures which have wasted countless hours, delayed projects, and virtually cut the organisation off from the outside world. Benefits have been few, and fixing the problems that remain will be a slow process.
These are the conclusions of an independent report by IT expert Peter Gill which was published after a recent CQC board meeting. The report found the transformation programme was to blame for widespread IT failures that have caused “significant organisational disruption”. That was not all, since: “The vast majority of the benefits expected to be delivered have not yet been achieved.”
Launched in 2021 under former CEO Ian Trenholm the transformation programme would, it was claimed, simplify the assessment process for health and social care providers. The programme included major changes to the organisation and operation of the CQC’s inspection regime, as well as the introduction of new IT, including a “regulatory platform and provider portal”.
According to Mr Gill, the programme cost £99m between November 2019 and July 2024, but only 5 per cent of expected benefits have been achieved. Unsurprisingly, he went on to conclude that the investment was not value for money, and that its plans were far too ambitious, since the CQC lacked a data strategy.
CQC staff have described how their mental and physical health had been impacted as they were unable to perform their functions effectively. They said that when concerns were raised, they were not listened to. More than 15,000 incidents were reported to the IT service desk.
The review was particularly critical of an assessment app, which it describes as “overcomplicated”, with “a significant part of the functionality” adding no value. It also revealed the regulatory transformation programme had obtained exemption from a government standard that expects digital services to be easily accessible to users.
There was also a dilution of clinical leadership as Chief Inspectors left and the impact this had on decision-making, made worse by a high level of reliance on contract staff who would not have to live or work with the finished systems.
The new CQC chief executive Sir Julian Hartley will now recommend that the incoming CQC chair, Sir Mike Richards, commission an independent review of organisational governance. This has not been the first damming report into the CQC, following the reviews by Penny Dash, who is the incoming NHS England chair, and Professor Richards.
The board did hear that there had been progress in dealing with some of the most pressing issues facing the CQC. The backlog of 500 reports that had been “stuck” within the CQC had been reduced to 135 from 500. The alarming collection of unacted upon “information of concern” notifications, was down to under 300 having nearly hit 2,000 in January 2025. A further improvement was that the proportion of registration applications taking longer than 10 weeks was now just under 30 per cent. And as March 2025 came to an end, the CQC was able to announce that all applications from 2023 had finally been processed.
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