DOCTORS at the BMA Annual Representative Meeting in Edinburgh have voted no confidence in the CQC (Care Quality Commission) and have declared the organisation ‘not fit for purpose’.
Citing the recent scandal of poor standards at Winterbourne View care home, Bristol GP Mark Corcoran said the CQC had inspected the care home three times in the preceding three years but had judged it compliant in terms of quality and safety.
He said it took a new member of staff to blow the whistle and make the issue public, after the CQC failed to respond to concerns.
‘It seems the CQC ignores big, serious issues, but pursues well-run care homes with petty rules,’ he said.
He said that although the CQC said it had changed, there was too much finger-pointing and blaming of previous regimes at the organisation – and that it had already had the opportunity to improve.
‘How many chances are they going to get? If it was a doctor, the CQC would be struck off,’ he said.
‘The CQC should shut up, grow up, and get its priorities right.’
Doctors agreed that the CQC should be held to account and public scrutiny following the public inquiry into failings at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust, that a chief inspector of primary care was not necessary and should not be appointed, and that the information governance function of the CQC should be removed.
Doctors and medical students also condemned the force feeding of prisoners on hunger strike in Guantanamo Bay.
They vowed to support any clinician who challenged this or any other cruel, inhuman or degrading practice and called for all governments to ensure prisoners had access to confidential, independent medical treatment.
London GP Jackie Applebee said there were still 166 detainees languishing in the US-military base, five years after president Barack Obama pledged to close the prison.
Of these, 86 have been cleared for release but have not been because of US security concerns.
She insisted: ‘The men see no hope of release and 104 have gone on hunger strike in despair. Of these, 44 are now being force-fed despite their clearly stated wish not to be treated, and to be allowed to die.’
Dr Applebee said the hunger strikers had written an open letter to the military doctors insisting they were competent to decide to die, and she described the force feeding as brutal.
She explained: ‘It has been reported that prisoners are required to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in restraint chairs for as long as two hours with a nasogastric tube in situ.
Sometimes metal tubes are used.’
BMA council chair Dr Mark Porter has written to the US president and his head of defence, calling for the practice to end.
