INSPECTORS from the Care Quality Commission arrived at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon yesterday to carry out a thorough inspection of its services and facilities.

The chief inspector, Professor Sir Mike Richards, is leading large inspection teams including clinical and other experts, along with specialist inspectors and experts by experience, to inspect all of the country’s acute hospitals.

He said: “Our inspections are designed to provide people with a clear picture of the quality of the services in their local hospitals, exposing poor or mediocre care as well as highlighting the many hospitals providing good and excellent care.

“We know there is too much variation in quality – these in-depth inspections allow us to get a much more detailed picture of care in hospitals and community services than ever before.”

Sir Mike’s inspection team is expected to look in detail at eight key service areas: A&E; medical care, including frail elderly; surgery; intensive/critical care; maternity; paediatrics/children’s care; end of life care; and outpatients. The inspectors will also look at community services for children and adults.

A GWH spokesman said: “This is a great opportunity for us to showcase the high quality care we provide, and also to gain a fresh perspective on some of the challenges we are working on.”

The inspection comes as new figures released by the Health and Social Care Information Centre showed that people discharged from hospital at weekends are far more likely to be readmitted as an emergency.

The rate of emergency readmissions increases over the week, from a low of 3.6 per cent for discharges on Mondays and Tuesdays to a high of 5.8 per cent for discharges on Sundays, the experimental figures from 2014 show.