CQC Issues Update on Local Authority Assessment Pilots

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) have now confirmed that Birmingham City Council, Lincolnshire County Council and Nottingham City Council will be the first sites to pilot their new approach to local authority assessments.

The pilots are expected to start in May and are designed to ensure that the regulator’s approach to local authority assessments is as meaningful and effective as possible. This follows last year’s test and learn activities across two local authority areas – Manchester City Council and Hampshire County Council – which tested aspects of the CQC’s full assessment approach.

A statement on the CQC website read: “We will use our new single assessment framework when assessing the three local authority sites during the pilots, following our draft local authority assessment framework.

“We will also be undertaking case tracking as part of the pilots. This involves retrospectively following the pathway of a small number of people’s cases to gather evidence for the assessment.

“For each local authority in the pilot, we will provide a report and indicative scores for all the quality statements and an overall rating. These are not formal ratings – they are indicative ratings that are determined through piloting. We will work with the LGA, ADASS and the pilot sites to agree the best way of making this clear.

“We will incorporate any learnings into our formal assessments which will start later in 2023.

“Alongside the pilots we are also reviewing data and published documentary evidence across all 153 local authorities, focusing on themes in these two quality statements: ‘Care provision, integration and continuity’ and ‘Assessing needs’.