Public has 'no confidence' in hospital inspection reports "In practice, CQC inspectors pass, as acceptable, standards of care that are certainly too low," he argued. Such inspections "fail to identify examples of care which don't meet the aspirations of the essential standards," he said. Chris Skidmore, another Conservative committee member, said that registration with the CQC was meant to be a "kitemark" the public could trust. But he said: "That first hurdle seems too easy to jump over." The CQC has been frequently criticised recently for failing to identify poor care and even abuse. It failed to heed the warnings of whistleblowers about routine abuse of people with learning disabilities at Winterbourne View care home near Bristol, with the matter only coming to light thanks to undercover BBC reporters. The committee's annual report found that the CQC still lacked focus, five years after being set up. Its "essential standards" could not be taken "as a guarantee of acceptable standards in care," the committee found. As a result, patients, residents and relatives do not have confidence in the CQC's standards or the outcomes of inspections. Some have called for the CQC's abolition, but Mr Dorrell said members felt that to "throw all the cards up in the air and start again" would be unproductive. The committee did note some improvements compared to a year ago, with "a much keener focus on patient safety" at the regulator, which has a new chief executive and a new chairman. But Mr Dorrell said these improvements came from "a low base." The report noted: "There have been too many reports of CQC inspections which focus on easily measurable inputs, rather than the essential quality of care provided. The organisation has sometimes seemed to be an illustration of the principle that 'what gets measured gets managed'. In the future, inspectors should "ask themselves about the culture of care within an organisation" and the CQC should make assessing this part of the formal inspection process. When no staff reported problems that was not a sign of a perfect organisation, said Mr Dorrell, but one that was not open or transparent. "It almost certainly it tells you that the culture is wrong," he said.