Perhaps the most significant fact to emerge from the Commons Health Committee’s hearing of evidence from the Care Quality Commission on 11th September was that the number calls to the watchdog’s whistleblowing hotline since the Winterbourne View scandal ‘broke’ has risen ten-fold.
Dame Jo Williams’ evidence attracted considerable press attention e.g. in the Daily Telegraph and Community Care, revealing as it did the breakdown in trust between her and CQC board member Kay Sheldon.
But it is the statement from the CQC’s new incoming chairman, David Behan, that “around a quarter of care homes have already been inspected this year and calls to the watchdog’s whistleblowing hotline have risen by ten-fold to 500 per month” that truly astonished.
The CQC is faced with an enormous workload (which may increase further, when the ‘Mid Staffs Hospitals’ Enquiry reports later this autumn),; and Rescare wonders if, and how, and how thoroughly, such a volume of whistleblowing calls will be followed up.