By james art Inspectors involved in the evaluation and regulation of health, education and other public services should be assessed to inspire public trust, leading health researchers suggest.
In a new opinion piece published today in the BMJ, Professor Richard Lilford of the University of Birmingham and Professor Timothy Hofer of the University of Michigan Medical School highlight how healthcare regulation in many countries around the world is not properly assessed.
Following the UK government’s commitment to reform the Care Quality Commission, Lilford and Hofer suggest that measuring the reliability of inspections of organizations such as hospitals and schools would be a significant step towards appropriate regulatory oversight. Furthermore, their opinion highlights how only two randomized controlled trials have been published on health facility regulation that combine inspection with management support provision.
Professor Richard Lilford CBE from the University of Birmingham said:
“The public want to know that the provision of health care is of good quality and its regulation through inspections is undoubtedly a significant and important task that should inspire public confidence. However, we found that there is a large gap in the evaluation of this work.
“As policymakers ask questions about how to reform the way health care providers are inspected, it is right to make proper evidence-based assessments of the reliability of inspections.” We have identified how this scrutiny of examiners can be effectively carried out and suggest that any judgments made about future reform will best serve the public when they are based on high-quality assessments.
Lilford and Hofer’s article also identified that there are a range of downstream benefits of inspection, including providing internal incentives for organizations to ensure they are organised, and that inspections instil some level of confidence that healthcare providers hold themselves accountable.
Full text: Lilford RJ, Hofer T P. Regulation of healthcare facilities: often criticized but rarely appreciated BMJ 2024; 387 :q2388 doi:10.1136/bmj.q2388