Recommendation F37: Use of information about compliance by regulator from: Quality accounts
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
Trust Boards should provide, through quality accounts, and in a nationally consistent format, full and accurate information about their compliance with each standard which applies to them. To the extent that it is not practical in a written report to set out detail, this should be made available via each trust's website. Reports should no longer be confined to reports on achievements as opposed to a fair representation of areas where compliance has not been achieved. A full account should be given as to the methods used to produce the information. To make or be party to a wilfully or recklessly false statement as to compliance with safety or essential standards in the required quality account should be made a criminal offence.
In brief (written by this site)
The Inquiry recommended trusts report compliance accurately in quality accounts and criminalise false statements. In commentary of September 2024, published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and NHS England stated that section 92 of the Care Act 2014 created an offence for care providers supplying false or misleading statutory information, while trusts must publish quality accounts annually subject to regulator corrections (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that NHS guidance requires every quality account to include a declaration signed by the organisation's most senior manager confirming its accuracy (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 5 Oct 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
About this summary
This recommendation applies across many organisations. The record reflects central policy activity; adoption in individual organisations may vary.
Government response
Accepted.
The National Health Service (Quality Accounts Regulations) 2010, the National Health Service (Quality Accounts) Amendment Regulations 2011 and the National Health Service (Quality Accounts) Amendment Regulations 2012 set out information that must be included within Part 2 of the Quality Accounts to ensure they are comparable including information on their compliance (see recommendation 246). The Quality Accounts are published nationally via the NHS Choices website to ensure that they are accessible and the information they contain on quality is available to patients and the public (see recommendation 247).
We also agree that reports should not be confined to achievements and should reflect a balanced view of quality. Professor Sir Bruce Keogh’s report Review into the quality of care and treatment provided by 14 hospital trusts in England (NHS England, July 2013) stated as an ambition that ‘…patients and the public, will have rapid access to accurate, insightful and easy to use data about quality at service line level’. This includes an action that the ‘…the requirements for Quality Accounts for the 2014–15 round begin to provide a more comprehensive and balanced assessment of quality.’
NHS England will review Quality Accounts before the 2014–15 cycle to ensure that they give patients appropriate information regarding the services they use, and that they add value to the quality assurance infrastructure used by trusts, local and national organisations. The review will consider recommendations 246 to 251 concerning the Quality Accounts along with the action highlighted in Sir Bruce’s report and will report in early 2014. It is expected that the review will be complete such that guidance can be issued in March 2014 and trusts advised of expected changes in early 2014.
How this response relates to the recommendation
Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.
Blanket government agreement does not establish acceptance or delivery by each addressee. Some response passages cover groups of recommendations.
Scope of the government response
Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.
Delivery
DHSC and NHS England say in progress (27 February 2026)
In response to this recommendation a new offence was created which is set out at section 92 of the Care Act 2014. The offence is applicable to care providers who supply, publish or otherwise make available certain types of information that is false or misleading, where that information is required to comply with a statutory or other legal obligation. The offence also applies to directors, managers, secretaries of similar officers of care providers, where they have consented or connived in an offence committed by a care provider. A defence is available where a care provider can prove it took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to prevent the provision of false or misleading information.
As described in our response to recommendation 17 above, NHS Trusts are required to publish Quality Accounts annually and share with the local Healthwatch.
The CQC and NHS England have power to require corrections or errors and omissions in these reports.
Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented - Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 37, PDF page 443-444.
Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (11 February 2015)
A review of Quality Accounts has taken place and engaged 180 stakeholders, including patients, carers, and service providers, Healthwatch, NHS England, NHS Trust Development Authority and Monitor. The Quality Accounts Stakeholder Group has updated the purpose of Quality Accounts; ‘Quality Accounts should give the reader the confidence the organisation was being open and honest about the quality of services being provided and was committed to driving continuous quality improvement’. Following this review a Quality Accounts Data Dictionary was developed and published in March 2014 to improve the consistency of indicator data and definitions. A live set of frequently asked questions has also been published in March 2014 focusing on specific areas of quality account production, including further technical guidance relating to indicators and information about who has to produce a quality account. Both of these are hosted on NHS Choices and can be updated throughout the year. Organisations take their indicator reporting information from the Health and Social Care Information Centre Quality Accounts Portal for purposes of consistency and accuracy. The Health and Social Care Information Centre portal was refreshed in March 2014.
Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to NHS trusts, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.
What other bodies have found
In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.
Thirlwall Inquiry legal team (15 May 2024)
This recommendation was accepted by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government agreed that reports should not be confined to achievements and should reflect a balanced view of quality.
In the February 2015 Culture Change report, the Government said that a review of Quality Accounts had taken place, with 180 stakeholders being involved. The Government said that, as a result of the review, the purpose of Quality Accounts had been updated to reflect the need for openness and honesty and a Quality Accounts Data Dictionary was developed and published in March 2014 to improve the consistency of indicator data and definitions.
Current NHS guidance requires every quality account to have a signed statement from the most senior manager of the organisation, declaring they are happy with its accuracy and are aware of the quality of the NHS services provided.
Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 37, PDF page 406.
Source
Responsible bodies
Themes and tags
Who has spoken
- Department of Health and Social Care
Response, delivery statement - DHSC and NHS England
Delivery statement - Thirlwall Inquiry legal team
Finding