AN INTERVIEW WITH JO WILLIAMS, BOARD MEMBER AND INTERIM CHAIR OF THE CARE QUALITY COMMISSION

What attracted you to working with CQC?

I applied to become a commissioner with CQC about 18 months ago because I thought I had the relevant experience.

Most of my working life – over 30 years - has been in social services. I’d worked as a director of social services for 10 years and from there I was fortunate to move into the voluntary sector and work at Mencap. I’d really enjoyed being a director but when I got to Mencap my husband said it was like I’d died and gone to heaven because I was so enormously happy there. But aside from recognising these two different work locations and the experience I had, one of the things that made a big impact on me at Mencap was the time we worked with a group of families. Each of these families had lost someone in pretty dreadful circumstances when they were in NHS care.

After two years of working with these families we published a report called Death by indifference, in which we said the NHS had failed the six people who had died for a whole variety of reasons, not least because, in many circumstances, the people working in the health services were not seeing these people as individuals; they were seeing them as someone with a learning disability and because of that, were not really exploring their health and wellbeing.

The Health Service responded very positively to our report, established an inquiry and recommendations were made by Sir Jonathan Michael. I think it’s true to say people really did want to bring about change. So a passion has been with me all my life to try and improve health and wellbeing for everybody. I’ve been lucky with my life, and I’ve wanted through my social work and social service time to give people opportunities for a better quality of life. And the health service dimension – although I did work in a hospital at one point - really came to life with my work at Mencap.

Having been here as Interim Chair for just over a month and half, I’m enjoying meeting people and learning from everyone about what’s going on; people have been so warm and welcoming and extremely supportive. There are many challenges ahead for CQC this year.

Can you tell us about your immediate priorities as Interim Chair?

I think it’s really important for us over the coming months to make sure the processes we have to set up for registering the health service, social care and independent healthcare run smoothly. We also need to recognise that we have approached this appropriately and that if we have to follow up with actions, we do that in a way that is constructive and actually brings about improvement.

Getting that right is very important. Also, I think because we know that public sector finances are under great scrutiny, we need to demonstrate that first of all we’re looking to ourselves that we’re fit for purpose and we have to demonstrate we add value. Building our reputation in the short term, being clear about how we add value and if we can reduce burdens on people as a regulator is really important.

So, at the end of the day I think for me once we have our new powers and registration is up and running I think we should be very clear that helping those who are not making the grade to improve is a real priority and explaining to the public how we’re making a difference.

Do you have a work philosophy? What drives you?

These are hard questions for anyone to answer. I think the thing that has always driven me is the strong sense of wanting fairness in this world and a strong sense of social justice. Increasingly, really caring about people’s human rights - equality is part of that - and celebrating people’s differences, those are the things that really matter to me.

I’m at the time of life where I look back and think I’ve been so fortunate and now I’m at the point where I’ve got some energy, I’ve got some time, what can I put back that might be useful? I can’t imagine just being at home. When I stopped working as a director of Social Services I thought I would move into a different mode and do all sorts of things. So when I was appointed director of Mencap I asked if I could take a long break and they agreed to six months. But four months later I remember making marmalade and my husband said to me “You just have to go back to work!” It was so not me.I think that sums it up really, an active life and I’m nosey, I’m very curious about people and what makes them tick.

What values do you want to embed into the organisation?

I think it’s important we are absolutely clear about embracing diversity and equality, both internally as well as in the way we embrace our role. I think we should be known for integrity and high quality performance. And I think it’s so important that we are always able to substantiate what we say; people should exercise their judgement but they should do it in a very open transparent way that is subject to scrutiny.
So I think the values are about openness and transparency and as I say, integrity every time. It’s not a value really – but doing what we say we’re going to do is so important. 'Put up and shut up' people say, but I think if you commit then you should see it through.

Finally, how do you relax? What’s a typical Sunday morning like in your house?

We have a bit of a routine really. We’re usually up for a run and then it’s either breakfast at home or in a café, with lots of hot coffee and the Sunday papers. I’ve got a Blackberry now I’ve come to CQC and I’m trying not to look at it on a Sunday morning, I do try not to keep clicking onto it all the time but it’s very seductive.

But probably other than that and at some point during the day just getting my head around what’s coming up the next week, mostly, once the papers are read, it’s family time. We’ve just had a great adventure, we went to India at the end of October and took part in what’s called the ‘Himalayan 100-Mile Stage Race’ which is one hundred miles in five days and it was fabulous. People from all over the world take part. We walked up hills and were able to run downhill and on the flat – the views were amazing.