Engaging with healthcare providers

Gathering and acting on feedback

An e-hotline has been developed by the Healthcare Commission, to enable all healthcare providers to draw attention to any concerns they may have about the planning and handling of external inspections, audits or reviews at their organisations.

We are currently developing this section.  More details about the e-hotline, together with our protocol for managing queries and details of resolved queries, will be available here soon.

Streamlining communications

The Audit Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, the Mental Health Act Commission, the National Audit Office and the NHS Litigation Authority are using an information gateway in order to manage the flow of communications with healthcare organisations.
Gateway information (pdf 24kb)
Gateway application form (doc 219kb)

Engagement

We are developing, with the NHS Confederation, a ‘virtual’ network for engaging with healthcare providers. This network will be used to test our overall programme of work.

Poll of NHS chief executives

We are testing the impact of the Concordat through engagement with and feedback to staff in healthcare providers and, where possible, we engage using established routes.

During Autumn 2005, 3 questions relating to the Concordat were included in a poll of a representative sample of trust chief executives of NHS organisations in England, conducted by the NHS Confederation: www.nhsconfed.org (opens new window).

The findings indicate that the majority of chief executives are aware of the Concordat. Chief executives are also becoming increasingly aware that they can use the Concordat as a mechanism to highlight concerns about regulation, audit and inspection. However, chief executives have not yet noticed a reduction in requests for data or visits.
 
Chief executives poll

We expect to repeat the poll at regular intervals and will use the findings, in conjunction with other indicators, to test the success and impact of the Concordat. Outputs from ongoing work will be posted on this site when they become available.