Care Quality Commission

Finsbury Tower
103-105 Bunhill Row
London
EC1Y 8TG

Dr Minh Alexander

Telephone: 03000 616161

Fax: 020 7448 9311
www.cqc.org.uk

By email: minhalexander@aol.com

26 August 2015

Dear Dr Alexander,
Thank you for your email of 16 August 2015.
In response to your further questions regarding CQCs whistleblowing data pilot:
1) I note that CQC has concerns about confidentiality with reference to
publishing the results of its whistleblowing data pilot, based on sample size.
Could CQC give details of the scale of the pilot being undertaken, and how
many disclosures and cases will be included in the pilot?
To clarify again, this is not just a pilot about how we classify and respond to
information of concern brought to us by staff within provider organisations. We are
testing a new internal approach to improve the effective and cost-efficient analysis
of the types and severity of information about poor care that we receive from
members of the public and individuals working within provider organisations.
In terms of the scale of the pilot, a small team of eight colleagues within our
National Customer Services Centre has been trained in the new approach and we
estimate that between the beginning of the pilot in June and the end of August we
will have had the opportunity to test the approach with contacts from approximately
3000 individuals. Based on the proportion of contacts which were from staff within
provider organisations last year, we would expect this number to include about 360
contacts from employees within service providers.
1) I do not think there are any data protection issues in sharing CQCs
methodology for the pilot. Transparency about CQCs methodology would
allow whistleblowers and other stakeholders the opportunity to suggest
potential improvements, before any national roll out. This would be in
keeping with CQCs stated commitment to co-production.

Interim Chairman: Michael Mire

Chief Executive: David Behan CBE
Registered office: Finsbury Tower, 103-105 Bunhill Row, London EC1Y 8TG

Please could CQC advise what new whistleblowing data parameters are
being tested in its pilot? (In addition to existing measures of volume and
outcome).
As you are aware, CQC wants to hear about information of concern relating to
peoples experience or observations of poor care in order that we can use this
information to help us to prevent poor care to others in the future. This information
is vital to helping inform when, where and what we inspect. For our pilot we have
identified what key data our local inspection teams need in order to make their
inspection decisions, and this has driven the types and flow of questions we ask
when people contact us. This includes members of the public and staff within
provider organisations.
The categories of data we are collecting as part of the pilot are:
1. Who is the person contacting us- is the person contacting CQC a
member of the public (service user or relative) or a current or past staff
member of a provider organisation (if they are a staff member they are
asked if they have raised their concern with that organisation);
2. Is a person at risk- is the information of concern about an individual, or
group of individuals, at risk of abuse or neglect;
3. Is a person being harmed- is the information of concern about an
individual, or group of individuals, who have been harmed;
4. Is it about another issue- is the information of concern about another
issue, such as staffing numbers, financial abuse, quality of food.
As you would expect, improving the experience of people contacting us with
information has also been a focus for this pilot, including making it clearer to people
what CQC can, and cannot, do for them personally.
Yours sincerely,

David Behan
Chief Executive