A BBC health watchdog investigation has uncovered ‘serious errors’ in the methodology and testing of calculations made by the Care Quality Commission in recent GP practice inspections. The results of these inspections were published a fortnight ago.

The BMA is now calling for the entire banding system to be withdrawn, whilst the CQC is currently apologising to hundreds of GPs all over the UK who have been subjected to ‘damaging’ and incorrect patient safety risk assessments.

GPs all over the UK are now questioning why they weren’t given full access to ratings before they were made public. John Flather, a Suffolk GP argues that with some prior warning, “we could have pointed out their errors and avoided this mess.”

Dr Chris Cullen’s practice in Ipswich is one of the country’s highest achieving surgeries, but was slapped with a high risk rating as the CQC incorrectly claimed that the practice had administered flu jabs to only 24% of their patients, rather than the actual figure: 96%.

Other findings in the report revealed that calculations for availability of GP or nurse appointments within practices were so inaccurate that the CQC has now removed this criteria from their inspections altogether, whilst four further indicators have had to be significantly refined: coronary heart disease incidence, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) incidence, unnecessary A&E admissions, and dementia diagnosis rates.

Recalculations will see around 60 practices happily removed from being misplaced in the two riskiest categories, with four practices initially deemed low-risk now subject to an early inspection. In total, some 519 practices will move bands of the 7,276 inspected.

This has been a week to forget for the CQC, who on Tuesday agreed to pay £570,000 in an out-of-court settlement with its former deputy CEO, Jill Finney. Finney sued the CQC for libel over claims she was involved in alleged cover up.

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, The British Medical Association’s GP committee chair, has said that these errors “have the potential to seriously undermine the trust in the system and patients’ confidence in their GP and it is only right that all of those practices affected are now contacted and receive a full apology.”

Over to you: should the entire inspection procedure be scrapped, or is it salvageable? Drop us a comment below, or take it to Practice Managers’ Forum. This discussion area is deliberately not Google indexed, so discussions cannot be brought up in an internet search and can only be seen by signed-up members.