Virgin Care services rated “Good” by CQC – even though most locations haven’t been inspected

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Virgin Care services have been rated “Good” across the board by the Care Quality Commission – even though most locations haven’t been inspected, an exclusive TLE investigation has revealed.

The Department of Health and Social Care body gives Virgin Care top ratings for safety, effectiveness, care and responsiveness in its online report, awarding the private sector company “Outstanding” for its leadership.

That’s despite most services listed on the site never being inspected.

Of the 34 services listed on the site, well over half (23 in all) have not been inspected, and in many cases the services are rated based on old providers – including Nye Bevan House.

Indeed, just Chippenham Community Hospital, Oldham Health Services, Townside Primary Care Centre, Virgin Care Luton and Waterhouse Business Centre had full up-to-date reports.

According to CQC, the inspection approach for large providers of community healthcare is akin to the one used for NHS trusts, which only requires assessments at overall provider level as well as separate individual assessments of each core service being provided, such as community services for adults, community services for children and young people, community inpatients and sexual health services.

As a result quality ratings have been awarded at overall provider level and for each individual core service.

A statement obtained by TLE read: “All services were inspected fully by teams which included healthcare professionals with current clinical expertise in the areas they were inspecting and we used a variety of information sources to make our judgements including performance data, direct observations of care, speaking with staff and patients.

“It is also important to note that our role and assessment of quality is about more than just inspection alone.

“Like all providers registered with CQC, Virgin Care Limited is subject to ongoing monitoring as part of our regulatory oversight.

“If at any time we believe that patients are not receiving safe, high-quality and compassionate care, we have a range of enforcement powers we can use to ensure that appropriate action is taken.”

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Jack Peat

Jack is a business and economics journalist and the founder of The London Economic (TLE). He has contributed articles to VICE, Huffington Post and Independent and is a published author. Jack read History at the University of Wales, Bangor and has a Masters in Journalism from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.