Failings by the Care Quality Commission have sparked emergency measures by health secretary Wes Streeting.

An independent review reported a litany of failings that have been allowed to build up under the Tory governments of the last 14 years.

They include:

• Inspectors lacking the necessary experience – including some being asked to inspect hospitals without ever having been into one before

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• Care home inspectors who had never met a person with dementia

• A backlog of assessments with one in five services never having been given a rating – this is thought to include new care providers, GPs and private health clinics that have opened in the last five years

• One NHS hospital having gone more than 10 years since its last inspection

• A lack of consistency with assessments

The CQC has said it accepted the findings in full. Streeting has said he is “stunned” by the extent of the problems and has ordered emergency measures – although these are limited at the time of writing.

He has asked the CQC to introduce “transparency” around how its ratings are reached – including whether or not they are the result of a full inspection – so the public can make informed decisions on whether they are an “accurate reflection of the quality of care”.

He has already appointed Sir Mike Richards, a vastly experienced cancer doctor who spent four years as the chief inspector of hospitals, to conduct a “rapid review” of the CQC in concert with senior leaders.

He said he was also looking to appoint a new chief executive and chief inspector of hospitals who the government “can work with to turn the regulator around”.

The CQC has also been asked to report into the Department of Health and Social Care on a regular basis on the steps it is taking.

The CQC inspects 90,000 different services, ranging from hospitals and GP practices to care homes and dental surgeries, giving them one of four levels of ratings – outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate. The public can use them as guidance when choosing care homes or GP surgeries, or to decide which hospital to go to for an operation.

This is another failing from the Tory years, unearthed after a government of a different party took office, and underlines why we cannot allow Conservatives back into government again.

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