The CQC have launched a new strategy today, based on extensive consultation with the public, providers of health and social care services, charities, and partner organisations. This won’t change CQC’s purpose of ensuring a high-quality of safe care is carried out, but how it works to achieve this will. The new strategy sets out four focal themes:
- People and communities: The regulation will be driven by people’s needs and experiences, focusing on what is important to them when it comes to access, use and moving between services.
- Smarter regulation: A more dynamic and flexible approach will provide up-to-date, high-quality information and ratings, deliver easier ways of working with the CQC, and a more proportionate regulatory response.
- Safety through learning: This will mean there will be an unremitting focus on safety, requiring a culture across health and care that enables people to speak up and share learning and improvement opportunities.
- Accelerating improvement: Encouraging health and care services, and local systems, to access support to help improve the quality of care where it is needed most.
Engrained through each of the themes are two main drives:
- Assessing local systems: This will give the public independent assurance about the quality of care in their area
- Tackling inequalities in health and care: There will be a push for equality of access, experiences and outcomes from services.
At the core of the strategy is how the CQC will work to make a positive impact on the experiences of everyone who receives care, while regulating in a targeted way, support for services that require improvements, and prioritising of safety.
One major change will be how the CQC assesses how well local health and care systems are working, and addressing local challenges. This will most likely be reinforced by legislation in the upcoming Health and Social Care Bill.
Danny Mortimer, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “We welcome the overall direction of the CQC’s new strategy, which marks a shift away from organisations and towards service improvement and whole patient pathways. The strategy intends to create a permissive environment and to foster the right culture to support quality improvement – two things that will be crucial to the success of system working.”
The regulator role will develop more ways of gathering views from a wider range of people, including those working in health and social care, as well as improving the recording process, analysed and used consistently. It will make it easier to identify changes in the quality of care, efficiently.
There will be a bigger opportunity for people, their families and advocates to give feedback about their care. This will include specifically engaging with people who are disadvantaged, had distressing or traumatic experiences, and those more likely to experience poor outcomes or inequalities. The CQC will in also increase the scrutiny of how providers encourage and enable people to give feedback, and how they act on this to improve their services.
CQC’s strategy lays out how innovative analysis, artificial intelligence and data science techniques will be used to support proportionate decisions, based on the best information available. The way information is provided on quality, and ratings, in order to make them more relevant, up-to-date, and meaningful, is another fundamental change.
Peter Wyman, Chair at the CQC said: “The world of health and social care has changed dramatically since CQC was established over a decade ago as an independent regulator – not least in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our new strategy responds to these changes, setting out a plan to deliver regulation that better meets the needs of everyone using health and care services, driving improvement where it is needed and supporting those who work in and lead services to deliver the best possible care.”
Ian Trenholm, Chief Executive at the CQC, said: “Our purpose has never been clearer. In our assessments we will ensure that services actively take into account people’s rights and their unique perspectives on what matters to them. We will use our powers proportionately and act quickly where improvement is needed, whilst also ensuring we shine a positive light on the majority of providers who are setting high standards and delivering great care.”
