Hospital 'surveillance' to stop another Stafford scandal David Prior, CQC chairman, told The Daily Telegraph: "These changes mark a break from the past for the CQC. We have not been looking at the right things when we have inspected hospitals and we have not had the right level of clinical expertise to get under the skin of organisations. The former Conservative MP, who took up the leadership of the regulator in January, said the watchdog was determined to "firmly put patients at the heart of what we do." The new regime will assess hospitals against a range of clinical indicators, including mortality rates and the number of "never events" - blunders such as operating on the wrong body part, or leaving instruments inside patients - as well as examining surveys of staff and patients, and information from complaints and whistleblowers. The findings will be used to trigger inspections, which can be followed by warnings, and ultimately, orders to close an organisation. The system will also collect a wider range of detailed information, which on its own would not be enough to raise an alarm, but which will be used as part of a "quality surveillance" operation which is intended to use up-to-date information to detect early signs of problems in hospitals. Mr Prior said: "Our inspectors will focus on things that are meaningful to people, not on bureaucratic processes. They will not tick boxes but miss the point. The CQC is consulting on the proposals, with the new system due to begin operation this autumn, with inspections targeted first at hospitals where the most concerns have been raised. Mr Prior said: "It should mean that when someone goes into hospital they have confidence that the hospital is getting the basic aspects of care right - the kind of care we all have a right to expect. These standards were not met at Stafford hospital.