The Health Secretary has announced that the way patient safety is regulated and monitored in England is to be completely overhauled.

Wes Streeting said the current system is “overly complex” as he reviewed six major organisations.

It comes as further changes are made to the way the Care Quality Commission, the regulator of NHS services, operates.

The regulator, which oversees 90,000 different services in health and care, has been asked to focus more on core services such as hospitals, GPs and social care. An interim report in July warned It was failing.

Since then, a new Chief Executive of the CQC – Sir Julian Hartley – has been appointed.

He currently leads NHS Providers, which represents senior health leaders, and is expected to take up the role at the CQC soon.

The six organizations to be reviewed are:

• cqc
• National Guard Office
• Healthwatch England
• healthcare safety inspection body
• Patient Safety Commissioner
• nhs resolution

The focus will be on how these bodies work together, with the findings included in the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS in the spring.

Streeting said: “Patient safety is the foundation of a healthy NHS and social care system.

“That is why we are taking steps to reform CQC, to eliminate poor performance and ensure patients can once again trust its ratings.

“The government will never turn a blind eye to failure,” he said.

“An overly complex system of health care regulation and oversight is not good for patients.

“We will overhaul the system to make it more effective and efficient for patient safety.”

The latest announcement coincides with the publication of the final report of the CQC review led by Dr Penny Dash.

The CQC was forced to abandon its original model of appointing chief inspectors to stop inspecting regional integrated care systems, partnership bodies that cover the entire health and care system in an area, and instead focus on individual areas such as hospitals, GPs and social But have been asked to return. Care.

Dr Dash’s interim report said the CQC lacked focus, with some of the inexperienced inspectors having never visited a hospital before, while some care-home inspectors had never met a person with dementia.

They also identified a backlog of inspections, with some hospitals not being inspected for 10 years.

But there are no plans to replace the single rating system – excellent, good, needs improvement and inadequate.

Matthew Taylor of the NHS Confederation, which represents health services, welcomed the announcements.

The existing model was not fit for purpose “for a very long time”, he said.

The CQC said it was taking “rapid action” in response to the findings, including ways to simplify assessments across different parts of the health sector.

It plans to appoint three new chief inspectors to regulate hospitals, GP surgeries and adult social care services.

Ian Dilks, chairman of the organisation, said: “We are committed to rebuilding confidence in CQC regulation and are taking action to ensure we have the right structures, processes and technology in place.”