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CQC fee increases – the consultation is underway

CQC fee increases – the consultation is underwayOne of the big talking points of recent weeks has undoubtedly been the hefty increase in CQC inspection fees.

In a nutshell, the proposals would mean fees for an average-sized GP practice with 5,001-10,000 patients increase by almost £2,000, to £4,500. What’s more, an article in Pulse says that the Department of Health has been unable to guarantee it will reimburse practices for the 76% hike in CQC registration fees, stating that it is under negotiation. And all of this comes on the back of the CQC reducing the frequency of visits to approximately once every five years!

Quite rightly, the GPC says the proposed fee hike is ‘scandalous’, even if it were reimbursed to practices. It said fee rises would divert funding which would otherwise have been spent on frontline patient services – as the total annual cost of inspections for general practice was due to rise from £21.3m to £37.5m.

GPC CQC lead Dr Mark Sanford-Wood said that the CQC is “planning to significantly reduce the scale of its GP inspections, which should lower the cost of regulation”. He said: “This is a scandalous proposed increase in fees that could see GP practices being charged an extortionate 76% rise in their CQC costs.”

Your views

So what do practice managers think of the news? Unsurprisingly the proposals have been met with anger.

“This is utter rubbish,” one told us. “If I hadn’t worked in primary for so long I would have thought it is a joke, but to squeeze the sector even further, at a time when we’re already feeling the pinch, it’s absolutely absurd. It’s another nail in the coffin for small surgeries and, seemingly, all part of a drive towards super-practices with 30,000 or more patients. The only loser is the patient.”

Another PM told us: “I understand that charges need to rise – just about everything that we have to pay for in a practice goes up every year – but it’s the level of the increase coupled with the reduced frequency of visits that I can’t understand. It means that a small practice visited once every five years will pay £20,000 for it! That’s a disgrace, even if practices are fully reimbursed.

“I also don’t see the logic in the way it’s paid for and then reimbursed. Why can’t the NHS just pay the CQC direct? The way it currently works surely wastes time and resources and impacts cash flow. I thought the government was trying to streamline its operations?”

Further ramifications

Practice managers and GP partners also agree that the fee increases have further negative ramifications on general practice. “Newly qualified doctors are far less likely to become GP partners when they continue to see news stories like this,” a GP partner commented to us. “They’ll just choose to become locums to avoid all the rubbish. And who can blame them?”

Justification

In a press statement regarding the fee increases, the CQC tried to justify the increases. CQC chief executive, David Behan, said: “We regulate over 30,000 health and adult social care providers and set clear expectations of what good care looks like, and when improvements need to be made.

“Protecting the public in this way has a financial cost. The fees paid by providers enable us to fulfil our purpose of making sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care.

“The proposals we have published today follow the plans we set out last year to continue to meet the Treasury’s requirement to recover our chargeable costs in full from providers.”

There is something you can do…

A small crumb of comfort for practice managers and GP partners is that the CQC has launched a consultation on its proposals to increase fees, which will run until 11 January 2017. The CQC will analyse the feedback from this consultation to prepare a response and a final fees scheme to recommend to the Secretary of State, whose consent is required to implement the scheme from 1 April 2017.

The consultation asking people to comment on:

  • Changes to the fees scheme for 2017/18.
  • Changing definitions in the fees scheme for substance misuse services and minor injury units and urgent care centres.

More detail on the proposals and how to respond to the consultation can be found in the documents on the CQC website.

Maybe if enough practices voice their anger, the CQC and The Treasury will think again. Then again, maybe they won’t!

Do you think the consultation will make any difference? Will you respond? What will you say? Let us know by commenting below or in the Practice Index Forum here.

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2 Responses to “CQC fee increases – the consultation is underway”
  1. Anita Green Says:

    My grave concern is the lack of choice we have in this matter. If your gas supplier charged 76% more you would change suppliers but we have no choice with CQC. If we do not sign up we will be closed. Where is the monopolies committee when you need them?

    Reply

    • Ben Osborne Says:

      Likewise if there is no support to cover the increase in costs some surgeries for which this would have a massive financial impact may not last, displacing thousands of patients affecting their safety. With living wage & pensions & reduced incomes etc. Yet another money grab from the pockets of GPs and partners could be the final nail. This years increase has already had an impact.

      If some of us do sign up we may close either way.

      Reply

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