The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is still 559 inspectors short of the total number it thinks it needs by the end of next year according to the Local Government Chronicle. The watchdog needs to grow its inspection workforce by 66% in one year to try to hit its target, underlining the scale of the recruitment challenge it faces.

According to documents presented at its board meeting, the regulator has 852 full time equivalent inspectors in post but has a total target of 1,411 by December 2015. The CQC chief executive David Behan said the target establishment of 1,411 was needed to “discharge the commitments that we’ve made in our business plan”. 

Mr Behan said the CQC was planning to recruit in “two tranches” of 300 inspectors by April, and a further 300 between April and December next year. “The key challenge, in all honesty, is whether we’ll be able to recruit inspectors to those numbers… but that’s what we’re embarking on,” he said.

Currently, the biggest shortfalls are among the acute hospital workforce, where there are 85 inspectors against an eventual planned total of 302, and mental health where there are only 35 against a target of 163.

Mr Behan said the CQC had moved away from a “mass recruitment campaign” - which had generated “huge interest” but a low conversion rate - to a more localised campaign which made better use of secondments.

The regulator has had problems with recruitment of inspectors in the past. An internal investigation by the CQC earlier this year revealed that a “flawed” hiring process in 2012 left it with more than 100 inspectors who had not met its recruitment standards at that time.