04.03.16
Government to cut red tape on care regulation
Red tape cutting initiatives worth £10bn announced by the government, including reducing regulation on care home inspections, have been welcomed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
According to the recent Cutting Red Tape review, residential care homes spend roughly 16 days a year dealing with inspections and 25 days a year handling information requests.
The government is seeking to lead a programme of work to make sure that the multiple interventions made by public bodies that deal with care homes are targeted, proportionate and co-ordinated and will clarify the purpose of each public body.
Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, welcomed the proposals, saying: “The responsibility for delivering safe, effective, person-centred and high quality care clearly rests with providers, supported by their commissioners and funders.
“Regulators must not get in the way of that – we have to ensure that we add value by setting clear expectations, providing transparent information about our judgments, encouraging improvement and tackling poor care when we find it.”
Sutcliffe has previously promised that the CQC is committed to taking tough action against unacceptable care.
The news comes at a difficult time for the CQC, after a recent Public Accounts Committee report called it ineffective.
More generally, the government proposes to cut regulations on business by a one-in, three-out principal, in order to reach the £10bn savings target, including environmental and local business regulations.