A highly experienced single care home provider, with a history of "Good" inspection ratings, had been working towards achieving an overall "Outstanding" rating. The leadership at the home was exceptionally strong, with high staff morale among long-serving staff members, making the home successful and highly regarded by residents, relatives, and the local community. The owner had engaged a specialist care consultant to support 'outstanding' practices and develop comprehensive evidence to substantiate this.
During a comprehensive inspection, the inspectors gave numerous superlative compliments, but the overall rating was disappointingly "Good," with only one category rated as "Outstanding."
On the suggestion of the specialist care consultant, the owner contacted Errol Archer and his team. They prepared a targeted factual accuracy response with extensive supporting evidence. However, the CQC initially dismissed the additional examples of outstanding practice, arguing that they were already recognised in the one category rated as "Outstanding."
Errol’s team believed that the CQC had not fully and properly considered the representations or additional evidence. The final published report narrated an outstanding-rated service without reflecting this in the rating. This was deemed unreasonable and irrational. Errol’s team advised that there were strong grounds for judicial review of the CQC’s decision on the ratings, bypassing the need to go through the CQC’s own ratings review process due to the decision’s apparent unlawfulness. They prepared and submitted a ‘letter before claim’.
After receiving the ‘letter before claim’ from Errol’s legal team, threatening judicial review, the CQC agreed to re-run the ratings process. This resulted in an additional category being rated as "Outstanding," and the home achieved an overall rating of "Outstanding."
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