More than 100 colleagues from across CHFT joined Elaine Jeffers as she shared with them what the CQC inspection next March will mean to them. Elaine works as a Specialist Clinical Advisor and Independent Chair so it’s fair to say she knows her stuff!

Elaine visited CRH, St John’s Health Centre and HRI and said that seeing so many CHFT colleagues indicated how much importance we are putting on the inspection.

Elaine, whose original background was pharmacy, has been on 16 CQC inspections across a variety of different organisations including acute trusts, community trusts and ambulance trusts. In her hour-long sessions she covered:

• What happens between now and up to the inspection
• That we’re likely to have between 40 and 60 inspectors come to CHFT
• What inspection week looks like on a day-by-day basis, and what the team look for when they first go onto a ward or department
• Scenarios about what might be asked and how the inspection team will approach it

Elaine explained: “It’s not a tick box exercise and it’s not Mastermind. It’s more of an informal chat.

“They will want to know happens on a day to day basis.

“They will not be firing questions that just need a yes or no answer, or testing colleagues for examples of the Health and Social Care Act. They will be having conversations with you that start to draw out the information they need.”

She said they would be picking one or two scenarios, a particular patient or two, and they will follow that patient all the way through their time with CHFT from admission to the point in time they are at, so they can see everything that should have happened has.

Elaine’s sessions were so full of interesting information and scenarios for colleagues, we’ve too much to write up in CHFT Weekly. You can see the full detail and a couple of short video clips on Elaine's dedicated page the intranet. And our main CQC page also has copies of inspection reports for other providers and more information. See the page here.

We've also attached the full (see top of page).