Care Quality Commission reveals names of people involved in alleged cover-up decision

The Care Quality Commission’s two most senior executives were at the centre of a meeting where a decision was allegedly taken to cover up a review that laid bare the regulator’s failings in regulating a hospital trust with a high number of deaths of mothers and babies.1

The CQC, England’s healthcare watchdog, has revealed that its then chief executive, Cynthia Bower, and her deputy, Jill Finney, were two of the four managers who met in March 2012 to discuss an internal review of the commission’s dealings with the University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust in Cumbria.

Louise Dineley, head of regulatory risk and quality, carried out the review, which listed a catalogue of failings in the CQC’s …