Recommendation F153: Medical training
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
The Secretary of State should by statutory instrument specify all medical education and training regulators as relevant bodies for the purpose of their statutory duty to cooperate. Information sharing between the deanery, commissioners, the General Medical Council, the Care Quality Commission and Monitor with regard to patient safety issues must be reviewed to ensure that each organisation is made aware of matters of concern relevant to their responsibilities.
In brief (written by this site)
In commentary from September 2024, published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England noted action taken following the inquiry, referring to recommendation 35 for detail on the regulatory landscape and how organisations work together (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). In May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team found that while Health Education England was added in April 2015 to the statutory list of bodies subject to a duty to cooperate, no other medical education and training regulators had been added (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024). The legal team also noted that operational protocols and memoranda of understanding covering information sharing had been established between the Care Quality Commission, the General Medical Council, and other oversight bodies (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).
AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026. The record below is the sources' own words.
Government response
Accepted in principle.
As stated in recommendation 152, in the new health and care system architecture, Memoranda of Understanding exist between key partners such as Health Education England and the Care Quality Commission, to share information and concerns about the quality and safety delivered of providers. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 further strengthened this by placing a statutory duty on Monitor and the Care Quality Commission to cooperate in the interests of patients. Monitor and Care Quality Commission have a Memorandum of Understanding in place to facilitate the necessary collaboration and information sharing. There are similar duties on organisations across the system, including Health Education England.
The Care Quality Commission and the General Medical Council have published an operational protocol which sets out in detail how coordination and information sharing will work between the two regulators. A similar arrangement will be in place between the Care Quality Commission and the Nursing and Midwifery Council by December 2013, and updated information sharing arrangements thereafter between the Care Quality Commission, the General Dental Council and Health and Care Professions Council. Information from third parties such as the General Medical Council and the Royal Colleges is a potential trigger for regulatory intervention in Monitor’s Risk Assessment Framework. Recently established Quality Surveillance Groups bring together the different parts of the system to share information, including shared views of risks to quality and any early warning signs of risk about poor quality. If any part of the local, regional or national system has concerns that there may be a serious quality failure within a provider organisation, which cannot be addressed through established and routine operational systems, a Risk Summit can be called.
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)
The Thirlwall Inquiry has noted action taken following the conclusion of the Inquiry.
Please also see response to recommendation 35 for detail on the regulatory landscape and how organisations work together.
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. 153, PDF page 496-497.
Department of Health and Social Care states no delivery position (11 February 2015)
No further update is required. Please see response to the recommendation in Hard Truths
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.
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 in principle by the Government and accepted by the General Medical Council in its spring 2013 initial response.
Duties to cooperate are found in sections 288 to 290 Health and Social Care Act 2012. Health Education England was added to the list of relevant bodies on 1 April 2015. No other medical education and training regulators were added to the list.
In its January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government referred to the various operational protocol and memoranda of understanding between relevant organisations. The Government also said that information from The General Medical Council and Royal Colleges was potential trigger for regulatory intervention in Monitor’s Risk Assessment Framework.
A Memorandum of Understanding between Health Education England and the Care Quality Commission memorandum of understanding (publicly available version dated May 2016) included information sharing provisions between the two organisations.
The joint operational protocol between General Medical Council and the Care Quality Commission (publicly available version dated June 2020) contained information sharing provisions, including any concerns the General Medical Council has about training.
The joint working protocol between the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Care Quality Commission (publicly available version dated November 2017) contained information sharing provisions, including any concerns the Nursing and Midwifery Council had about training at an organisation.
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. 153, PDF page 464-465.
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