Dr Kevin Groombridge, a care quality expert, who is currently leading a team of global partners in developing an International Standard for Adult Social Care, and is chief executive of CiUK, said: “It is becoming patently clear that ‘Care Quality’ Commission, is a misnomer. How can the organisation claim to be ensuring ‘care quality’ when it hasn’t fully inspected over 40 per cent of Greater Manchester’s care homes for five years?”
CiUK is the only UKAS-accredited and registered independent care inspection body in the UK. It undertook research after reports of a CQC backlog of some 5,000 ‘notifications of concern’ was reported to the Health and Social Care Select Committee earlier this year.
The data show that, of the 436 care homes across Greater Manchester’s 10 local authorities that were registered in 2020 or before, 186 of them (42.66 per cent), have not received a full CQC inspection since the year of the onset of COVID-19.
Breaking the figures into local authority areas, CiUK has identified that the highest proportions of uninspected care homes include Oldham (51.35%), Bolton (51.02%), and Rochdale (47.73%). Other areas also showing significant backlogs include Wigan (55.81%), Salford (40.00%), Manchester (40.30%), Stockport (33.93%), Tameside (38.89%), Trafford (37.78%), and Bury (30.95%).
Dr Groombridge, said: “The evident backlog in care home inspections is a serious concern for all – how can we be certain that our parents and grandparents are receiving quality care if nobody is checking? Of course, the vast majority of adult social care settings, and their staff, work incredibly hard to ensure that our loved ones are well looked-after but that doesn’t mean there isn’t need for audit, inspection and scrutiny.
“The Government needs to get real about the fundamentally flawed CQC; not only is it monumentally behind but its metrics are skewed; it bases its ratings on subjective and biased opinions, rather than evidence and data and leaves care home operators out in the cold, offering criticism without support.
“Even when it carries out an inspection, the CQC can take up to four months to complete its report. It’s simply not good enough. The system needs radical reform, now, to ensure the residents of the 186 care homes in Greater Manchester, which have not been inspected since 2020, are safe, looked after and receiving the support they need and deserve.”
Data from CQC, dated 3 February 2025.