Care Quality Commission Approach is Flawed

3rd December 2009

Vangent is joining the call to review the Care Quality Commission’s methodology and approach to conducting inspections following its flawed findings in respect of Southwark Council issued in its recent report.

As Southwark’s strategic partner, since 2005, in the delivery of customer service across the borough Vangent is responsible for the Customer Service Centre (CSC) which responds to over 2 million customer contacts every year. The CSC has been instrumental in transforming the delivery of customer service and is recognised within the industry as a leader in innovation receiving commendations and awards for the improvements in customer experience that have been delivered. This is backed up by the independent customer satisfaction surveys that are undertaken in addition to those conducted by both the Council and Vangent on a regular basis.

The Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) report and findings do not reflect the strong satisfaction levels that have been achieved in Southwark and is called further into doubt given the findings of the Audit Commission report earlier this year that complimented Southwark on its overall approach to caring for the elderly. In 2008 Southwark was judged to be excellent in respect of adult social care and since then Southwark have improved services and service delivery.

“In delivering customer service we are always looking at ways in which we can improve what we do and the outcomes for the customer but it is also very important to be responsive - In November we answered 1,478 calls on the Southwark Adult Social Care line and the average time to answer was 11 seconds – very much top quartile performance”; commented Stephen Meyler, Managing Director of Vangent. “It is very important that reports such as CQC’s can be relied upon by the public and I would join with Southwark in a call for an urgent review of the methodology and approach that the CQC have followed.”