Wes Streeting warns that Britons can’t trust the health watchdog. Some hospitals haven’t been inspected in a decade. When was your hospital last inspected?

A shocking report into health watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has revealed that it has not visited a number of hospitals for a decade. Now you can see when your local care provider was last checked using our search tool.

The damning interim report found the regulator, which has a duty to inspect care providers in England, had “significant internal failings” that affected its ability to identify poor performance.

This morning, Health Secretary Wes Streeting even said people should not trust the CQC ratings, saying they are ‘not fit for purpose’ and need ‘radical reform’.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I would take today’s viewing figures with a pinch of salt.

‘I want to make sure we urge the CQC to qualify the ratings by providing background information on how they were determined, so that people can make informed decisions.’

Health Minister Wes Streeting said he was ‘shocked’ by the state of the CQC and warned people not to trust its ratings

Mr Streeting told ITV’s Good Morning Britain he was “shocked” to be faced with a crisis at the heart of the CQC just three weeks after taking office as Health Secretary.

He said: ‘[Inspectors] go to nursing homes without experience with common conditions such as dementia and judgments about the quality of care. They go to hospitals without experience with actually providing care in a hospital.

“Each of those things would be shocking on its own. Together, they are a damning indictment of a regulator that is supposed to ensure standards of care and patient safety.”

He added: ‘It won’t be easy… things are worse than we expected. It’s clear to me that the CQC is not fit for purpose.’

Asked if there was a solution that didn’t involve spending more money, Mr Streeting said: ‘I don’t think money is the problem here. I think it’s culture.’

He told BBC Breakfast: ‘There are brilliant people working in the NHS and social care, but we can’t pretend there isn’t also a huge amount of failure.

‘And that this failure clouds the heart of the CQC is unacceptable.

“We will not tolerate this, we will take the necessary measures to implement the radical reforms that this organization needs.”

The Health Secretary said he was ‘astonished’ to learn that one in five care providers has never received a rating from the Care Quality Commission (file image)

The CQC says it ensures health and social care services provide people with ‘safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care’ by monitoring and inspecting what they do (file image)

He said the CQC needed a new permanent director as a starting point and that he planned to appoint a new chief inspector of hospitals to get the regulator back on track.

The report by Dr Penny Dash, chair of the North West London Integrated Care Board, found that some care providers had not been re-inspected for years, with the oldest review for an NHS hospital dating back more than 10 years.

The interim report found that it is estimated that around one in five sites the CQC is authorised to inspect have never received a rating.

It also emerged that some staff members lacked sufficient experience. Examples emerged of inspectors visiting hospitals who said they had never been to a hospital. There was also an inspector from a care home who had never met anyone with dementia.

The Department of Health and Social Care has announced that immediate steps are being taken to restore public confidence in the CQC. The CQC is in the process of appointing Professor Sir Mike Richards, a former hospital doctor, to review the assessment framework.

Transparency over how the regulator determines ratings of health and social care providers will also be improved and the government will exercise stricter oversight of the CQC, the department said.

Dr Dash was asked to conduct the CQC review in May and has spent the past two months speaking to around 200 senior managers, carers and clinicians from across the sector, as well as more than 50 of the organisation’s senior managers and professional advisers.

She said: ‘The contents of my interim report underline the urgent need for comprehensive reform within the CQC.

‘By tackling these shortcomings together we can better enable the regulator to inspect and assess the safety and quality of health and social care across England.

‘Our ultimate goal is to create a robust, effective regulator that can support a sustainable and well-performing NHS and social care system that the general public deserves.’

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: “This will be a long and difficult journey for the CQC, but one that is absolutely necessary.

‘The CQC must embark on a radical programme of improvement that not only delivers some tangible improvements in performance but also moves away from the culture of blame.

‘We all want proportionate and effective regulation, and the challenge for the CQC now is to take action and work with organisations in the sector to deliver this.’

Kate Terroni, CQC interim chief executive, said: ‘We fully accept the findings and recommendations in this interim review, which highlight clear areas where urgent improvement is needed.

‘Many of these align with the areas we have prioritised as part of our work to rebuild public and healthcare trust, by listening better, working together better and being honest about what we are doing wrong.’

Progress will be monitored over the summer and the full independent report will be published in the autumn, the Department of Health said.