Dash Review: Data submitted to Department of Health & Social Care

In June 2024, we submitted some data on ratings, scorings and factual accuracy changes to the Department of Health & Social Care for use in the Dash Review. The questions and our answers are reproduced on this page.

1. What proportion of current provider ratings include a historical rating for safe, effective, caring, responsive, or well-led? 
   1. How does this vary by provider type?
   2. How does this vary by provider primary inspection category?
   3. What is the minimum, average, and maximum length of time between the historical rating used and current rating being awarded?

33,720 services have a published rating. There are 8,717 locations with no current rating (where we have the power to rate). 30% of services with no rating have been registered within the last 12 months. There are 11,441 services that we do not have the powers to rate.

The average age of ratings is 3.7 years. The oldest rating is from 8 June 2014 and relates to Crawley Hospital, which is rated as good.

2. What is the score (as a percentage) for safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led, for all active providers? We want to know where providers sit within each of the ranges 
   1. 25 to 38% = inadequate
   2. 39 to 62% = requires improvement
   3. 63 to 87% = good
   4. 88% and above = outstanding

Because we have not yet completed a high volume of assessments under the SAF, we have instead provided the current domain ratings for locations published under our old methodology.

3. For maternity services, what was the score given to each of the 5-8 quality statements underpinning ‘safe’? 

We have not yet published any maternity services assessments under the SAF (there are however 29 in progress or planned). It is worth noting that an assessment of a maternity service under the SAF may not require us to review all of the quality statements within a domain, and in some cases, providers will receive default scores, which are not published, and are not indicative of a final score given during the first assessment.

As such, the more helpful response we can offer is to include information we have published under our old methodology, which includes ratings from our maternity inspection programme, as below.

4. How many times has CQC has changed a rating, after giving an indicative rating? (After sharing the draft report with Trusts for factual accuracy checks) 

We are happy to receive the underlying data and produce this analysis ourselves, and then check it back with you to ensure we have understood it correctly.

The following data fields would be needed at a minimum:

• Provider ID
• Provider ODS code
• Provider name
• Provider type
• Provider primary inspection category
• Provider postcode
• Provider local authority
• Provider NHS region
• Service / population group
• Domain
• Latest rating
• Publication date
• Inherited rating

We have received 140 factual accuracy challenges from 684 published assessments (20.7%). In 7 (1.02%) instances the overall rating changed after the draft was shared with the provider. In 29 (4.25%) cases we changed the scoring of an evidence category.