Practices in poor areas are more likely to face CQC sanctions

General practices in England’s more deprived areas are nearly three times as likely as those in affluent areas to face sanctions from the health services regulator, a BMJ investigation has found.1

Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee, said that the Care Quality Commission’s inspection regime was “too simplistic” and didn’t reflect the difficulties that practices in poorer areas faced. “Many practices in urban deprived areas have struggled with premises, funding, recruitment, and retention and yet had very challenging populations,” he said. “It’s fairly obvious that some of those practices will then fail to deliver on some of the …