Part one of three: The CQC inspection process through the eyes of a PPG chairman 

“As a PPG Chairman I’ve heard a lot about the CQC in recent times… so last month I admit I was particularly pleased to hear they were visiting our practice. Being a proactive PPG chair, I encouraged PPG members to do their homework in advance of the visitation. Sadly that didn’t quite go to plan with one member mistaking the Care Quality Commission for Close Quarters Combat, another focusing on Cork Quality Control and one member watching hours of Caia Quem Caia on YouTube! Actually if you are at a loose end this Portuguese TV game show comes highly recommended. Mix together: The Fast Show, Eurotrash and The Day Today and you’ve got the Portuguese CQC! It is literally bonkers and more fun than a visit from the watchdog.

Back to CQC UK style and my first impressions were rather mixed. On the plus side the chief inspector introduced himself to the four PPG members present and provided a decent explanation of who the CQC are (although one PPG member was clearly pretty distressed as to why this initial pitch didn’t mention anything to do with the bottling process of fine wines!). There followed information on the key elements and timescales of the inspection and we were told a GP and nurse were beavering away out of sight as part of the wider CQC team. My initial disappointment was that the chief inspector didn’t tell us any of their personal credentials… other than to give their first name and state ‘I am the chief inspector’. Marvellous, I thought, but I’d prefer a brief resume of your personal experience of general practice! What then became annoyingly apparent was that ‘the chief’ had clearly looked at NONE of our PPG documentation whatsoever.  Of course, I appreciate it is a very tricky task downloading a few sets of minutes and related documents from the PPG section of the practice website and reading them before arrival, but ‘the chief’ certainly scored ‘outstanding’ for failing to execute this task in advance of meeting us. I thought these guys were ‘evidence and documentation’ junkies!

On the subject of arrival … another gripe I’m afraid, as it transpired the ‘the chief’ had turned up 10 minutes after opening time and thus missed the daily queue of 30 people assembled outside the front door all hoping to make an appointment. Surely if you are going to assess a service, it is common sense to be there slightly ahead of opening time. Perhaps the urge for caffeine and a trip to Costa got in the way that day, but I’d advise any CQC inspector worth their salt to be outside the front door five minutes ahead of opening time and talking to patients. I predict these patients know the practice better than most.

Meanwhile, with zero knowledge of the PPG ‘the chief’ proceeded to bombard us with questions to find out more about what we do. From memory we were asked: do the practice have a PPG (answer ‘yes we are four members of the PPG’), when was the PPG established, how many members did the PPG have, how often did the PPG meet, did we have a virtual PPG, etc. Of course we politely answered these questions while ‘the chief’ took extensive notes, but surely all of this could have been dealt with in advance to save time?

Another question ‘the chief’ asked us was ‘are the PPG representative of the practice’? Now I’m not sure what the CQC want, but is there any PPG in the land that is truly representative of their practice? I’m all for embracing diversity, but it seems to me that unless you have the entire cast of the ‘Guess Who’ board game on your PPG then this is not possible. We told ‘the chief’ our group currently consists of members aged 18 to 80, a mix of men and women, a wide range of nationalities, a new young mum, a wheelchair bound patient, a partially sighted patient and a member who’s partner is pretty much permanently housebound. A good mix, but unless your PPG consists of the Village People, their extended family and friendship groups, then I’m not sure your cutting it in terms of being a truly representative group! The frustration at this stage was that ‘the chief’ didn’t ask anything about PPG member’s jobs or status. I find that odd. But then again if you don’t want to tell the PPG your credentials other than to introduce yourself as ‘the chief inspector’ I guess you might not want to know what we do beyond being a ‘PPG member’!”

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