Recommendation F251: Regulatory oversight of quality accounts
From Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry, published 6 February 2013.
Recommendation
The Care Quality Commission and/or Monitor should keep the accuracy, fairness and balance of quality accounts under review and should be enabled to require corrections to be issued where appropriate. In the event of an organisation failing to take that action, the regulator should be able to issue its own statement of correction.
In brief (written by this site)
In commentary published in February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England stated that the Health Act 2009 requires providers to republish quality accounts within 21 days if notified of errors by the Care Quality Commission or NHS England (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Both bodies also reported that a National Quality Board review to determine how quality accounts could be improved was "temporarily paused" (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team observed that the government had originally accepted the recommendation in principle while focusing on provider and auditor responsibilities, without addressing the role of regulators (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.
Where inaccurate information is identified within a Quality Account it should be changed by the provider as soon as possible.
While responsibility for the accuracy of the Quality Accounts rests with providers, their external auditors audit these accounts to provide limited assurance of their accuracy. Where issues are located the auditors provide the Board, and the Board of Governors where applicable, with a report of their findings along with recommendations for improvement (see recommendation 248). Where issues are identified as a result of the audit process the issues must be addressed by the provider. In all cases the report must be published as part of the provider’s Quality Account.
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 requirement to share draft Quality Accounts with organisations falls under the Health Act 2009 and subsequent Health and Social Care Act 2012.
Section 9 of the Health Act 2009 states what if CQC or NHS England notify the provider of an error or omission in the Quality Accounts, they must, within 21 days of the notification republish the document correcting the error or omission and including a statement explaining the correction.
The National Quality Board has been undertaking a review of quality accounts to determine how they could be improved and updated. Work on this review is temporarily paused.
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. 251, PDF page 559.
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.
Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to the Care Quality Commission, 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 in principle by the Government.
In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government stated that responsibility for the accuracy of quality accounts rested with providers, with external auditors to provide limited assurance of their accuracy. The Government did not refer to the role of the Care Quality Commission or Monitor.
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. 251, PDF page 514-515.
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