CQC Announces Its Regulatory Fees For Providers For 2018/19

Following a public consultation last year, the Care Quality Commission have outlined the fees that providers of health and adult social care in England will pay from April 2018 to cover the costs of their regulation. We made proposals that affected NHS trusts, NHS GPs and community social care providers.

CQC’s regulatory functions are funded both by fees paid by providers and by grant-in-aid from the Department of Health. Government policy requires CQC to fully recover the chargeable costs of regulating health and adult social care in England.

In a letter to providers, Chief Executive, David Behan explained that the fees paid by providers enable CQC to fulfil its purpose and ensuring that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care.

Following consideration of the responses, the CQC have made a number of decisions on its fees scheme for 2018/19, which are outlined in their response to the consultation. The only sector that will see an overall increase in fees is the community social care sector, in line with an agreed four year trajectory to full chargeable cost recovery. CQC grant-in-aid funding from government will decrease by the same amount.

Examples of the fee changes that community social care providers, NHS trusts and NHS GPs can expect include:

• A community social care provider with 1 location and 15 service users will see their fee decrease from £2,192 to £926
• A community social care provider with 3 locations and 50, 100 and 45 service users at each of the locations will see their fee increase from £6,093 to £9,643
• An NHS trust with a turnover of £120 million will see their fee decrease from £158,902 to £85,200
• An NHS trust with a turnover of £681 million will see their fee increase from £322,249 to £483,510
• An NHS GP provider with 1 location and a patient list size of 5,200 will see their fee decrease from £4,526 to £3,473
• An NHS GP provider with 2 locations and patient list sizes of 10,000 and 8,300 at each of the locations will see their fee increase from £8,371 to £11,449.

For all other sectors the fee scheme remains unchanged, which means a provider’s fee will remain the same as that for 2017/18, providing their registration remains unchanged.

CQC fees for 2018/19 represent 0.16% of overall indicative turnover of the health and social care market.

You can find the annual fee for your service for 2018/19 using the fees calculator published on our website.

You can also find guidance on how and when to pay your fees, including information on paying by instalment.

In response to these announcements, Vic Rayner, Executive Director of the National Care Forum said, ‘NCF acknowledges that CQC is progressing to full cost recovery through regulatory fees and that grant in aid from the Department of Health and Social Care is reducing.

‘However today’s announcement for community social care providers, where most will see an increase in their fees, whilst expected will not be welcome.

‘NCF members support independent regulation and inspection, but the increase in fees will further add to the challenges that providers face which have been so clearly articulated by the CQC themselves.

‘Seven days ago, Jeremy Hunt announced his seven principles of social care reform. This is an opportunity for him to take action and stop the escalator of fee rises for care provision, and bring the core principle of sustainable funding into each and every current government decision that has a direct impact on the fragile care sector. This is one piece of reform that does not need to wait for a Green Paper – press the button and stop the fee escalator now.’