HEALTH bosses in Worcestershire have questioned if a national watchdog is up to the task.

The Care Quality Commission is the national health and social care watchdog which makes sure hospitals and care homes are performing well enough.

It was the CQC which published a damning report into two wards at the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch in May which raised “major” concerns about patients having enough to eat and drink.

But the tables were turned at a board meeting of NHS Worcestershire at Kidderminster Town Hall when health chiefs asked if the CQC was itself fit for purpose.

Rob Parker, one of the trust’s non-executive directors, said: “Are they fit for purpose or man enough for the job, to give us assurances that what they do in Worcestershire is good?”

Eamonn Kelly, the trust’s chief executive, said he was aware of a health select committee report which said the CQC had diverted resources away from inspection towards registration. All organisations that provide healthcare have to be registered so they can be monitored by the CQC.

The select committee criticised a ‘tick box’ culture because the regulator had focused on bureaucracy while the chairman, Stephen Dorrell, who is from Worcester, said there had been “a distortion of priority”.

The CQC came into the spotlight when the BBC’s Panorama programme, rather than the watchdog, uncovered abuse at a residential home near Bristol.

During the registration process the number of inspections fell from nearly 7,000 from October 2009 to March 2010 to just over 2,000 the following year.

Mr Kelly, responding to the committee’s report, said: “I think Stephen Dorrell was clear that lessons had been learned and the CQC was acting on them.”