BY E-MAIL ONLY

To: [FOI #9801 email]

27 May 2009

Our reference: CQC-015

Dear Ms Speers,

I am writing in response to your request for an internal review of your recent request for information. This was processed under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. In your e-mail of 8^th April 2009, you requested the following information:

"Please may I have information on the NHS Second Stage complaints handling costs incurred by the Healthcare Commission since the inception of its remit to the present day. Also can these costs include a breakdown of each department's costs? i.e. investigation costs, cost of monitoring recommendations, costs of assessing ratings."

In her response originally dated 6 May, Ms Ince stated that she was not able to provide you with the Healthcare Commission's final annual report because this had not yet been published. I'm afraid I can add little additional detail to this other than to say this will be published and should be available from the Department of Health in September.

In your letter you also refer to awaiting an independent review as your complaint was upheld and you wish to know about the costs of monitoring recommendations. As you know the Healthcare Commission closed on 31 March and at that time the second stage complaints function ceased to exist. If you require any further reviews of your complaint you should now therefore approach the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

With regard to monitoring the recommendations made following an upheld complaint the Healthcare Commission required NHS Trusts to inform the complainant and the Commission of the measures it intended to put in place. Strategic Health Authorities (SHA's) would also receive a quarterly report detailing the numbers of complaints and any recommendations arising from them relating to specific departments for the NHS trusts in their geographical areas. SHA's are responsible for overseeing the performance management of NHS Trusts so they will take into account issues raised in complaints.

In some cases, if the Healthcare Commission felt that the issues raised by the complaint were particularly significant and had the potential to affect a number of patients the recommendations would be passed to the Commission's regional assessor. If necessary the assessor could then follow these up with the Trust at the time of annual assessment.

Unfortunately as Ms Ince stated in her letter we do not hold any information relating to the costs involved in monitoring recommendations and therefore I am afraid I cannot provides you with this information as part of your internal review.

Finally you sought some clarification regarding the publication of the investigation report into patient safety at West London Mental Health Trust. I can assure you that CQC does intend to publish this report shortly; I understand that a provisional timescale for this has been set for late June, I'm afraid I have no further information regarding this.

I hope that I have now been able to answer your questions. However, should you remain dissatisfied after this internal review, you have a right of complaint to the Information Commissioner. Further information is available at:

Information Commissioner's Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Telephone: 01625 545 700

www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk

Yours sincerely,

Alex Daybank

Information Governance Advisor

Care Quality Commission

103-105 Bunhill Row

London

EC1Y 8TG

[email address]

Helpline: 03000 616161

Chairman

Barbara Young

Chief Executive

Cynthia Bower

Registered office:

Finsbury Tower

103-105 Bunhill Row

London EC1Y 8TG