Practice 6.2 Weighted to risk

Examples of notable practice:

Making recommendations

Concordat signatories have agreed a set of guidelines [link] designed to ensure that recommendations are SMART, evidenced, state the expected improved outcome as a result of their implementation and link to appropriate standards, including the Standards for Better Health (opens new window) where relevant.  The objective is fewer and better targeted recommendations that do not conflict with or unnecessarily conflict with each other and which make clear the scale of financial costs for implementing them, where significant.

Reducing the burden of inspection on independent healthcare organisations

In April 2005, the Healthcare Commission moved from an assessment system that effectively audited every establishment against every National Minimum Standard to a risk based approach. This was part of a move to reduce the burden of inspection for independent healthcare providers, and part of wider changes within the entire healthcare sector. This new process allows us to target inspection activity according to risk through a transparent process that makes more use of pre-inspection information than just our own previous findings. This has meant that we have reduced the inspection time spent in all categories of establishment - everything from large acute hospitals to small single handed beauty salons that provide hair removal by laser.

Before April 2005 three or four inspectors would have spent three or four days on site during an average inspection of a large acute hospital. This has now reduced to three or four inspectors spending between one and a half and two days on site. For beauty salons with lasers, time on site has reduced from one day to half a day.

We have also revised our methods and tools for inspections, moving from a ‘one size fits all’ approach, to adopting different tools for different types of establishments. This makes the inspection process much more relevant for smaller services, especially non-clinical ones, and delivers a more targeted approach. In addition our reports are now more accessible for members of the public, and our reporting process is more concise which is less time consuming for staff.