CQC fees rise for NHS providers could top £18m next year
20 October 2016
- The Care Quality Commission has launched a consultation on rises to regulatory fees from April 2017 for all sectors
- Members could see their fees hiked by almost 50% - for some equating to an increase of over £100,000
- The cost increases threaten to have a particularly destabilising impact on GPs and adult social care providers, with a knock-on impact on our members
The Care Quality Commission has published its consultation on the fees that it proposes to charge providers in 2017/18.
The proposals are based on last year’s consultation and decision, with consent of the secretary of state, to meet the government requirement to achieve ‘full chargeable cost recovery’. Fee recovery is based over a two-year period for most providers, and over four years for community social care providers.
For an NHS trust with turnover of £325m to £500m, fees will rise from £195,519 to £288,912. This means our members will see their fees hiked by almost 50% - for some equating to an increase of over £100,000.
Responding to the publication of the consultation, NHS Providers head of policy Amber Davenport said:
“The Care Quality Commission (CQC) plays an important role in regulating all care providers against core standards of quality and safety, and it is right that they are properly funded to do that well. But with pressures on frontline health and social care budgets intensifying, we remain concerned with the funding approach.
The cost increases threaten to have a particularly destabilising impact on GPs and adult social care providers, with a knock-on impact on our members
“Like our colleagues in primary and social care, we were disappointed last year with the Department of Health’s decision to require the CQC to move to a full cost recovery funding model over just two years. This was at odds with the overwhelming support of our members for a longer four-year timescale, and has now, according to these new proposals, led to a situation where providers will see their fees rise by almost 50%. This equates to over £100,000 for some. Across the whole sector, the rise in fees is more than £18m, which put into context, is enough to pay the wages of around 700 nurses for a year.
“The cost increases threaten to have a particularly destabilising impact on GPs and adult social care providers, with a knock-on impact on our members, who will be faced with the double whammy of absorbing the extra demand from these sectors.
“The government urgently needs to address how best to fund providers to pay for these fee increases through the national tariff, CCG budgets and other payment mechanisms, so that more of providers’ already stretched resources are not diverted away from frontline care. With performance against access standards at an all time low, and funding set to plummet further in 2017/18 and 2018/19, this is now critical.”