CQC Launches Strategy Consultation

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a formal consultation on our new strategy. The draft is the product of over 10,000 interactions with stakeholders and sets a bold ambition for the organisation over the next five years.

The CQC say that changes are needed We to the way they regulate so that it’s more relevant, working with health and care services to find solutions to problems and improve outcomes for everyone, , and to add flexibility to help manage risk and uncertainty.

This strategy is built on four themes that together determine the changes they are making. Running through each theme is an ambition to improve people’s care by looking at how well health and care systems are working and how they’re acting to reduce inequalities.

The four themes in the draft strategy are:

• People and communities: We want our regulation to be driven by people’s experiences and what they expect and need from health and care services. We’ll focus on what matters to the public, and to local communities, when they access, use, and move between services.
• Smarter regulation: We want our assessments to be more flexible and dynamic. We’ll update ratings more often, so everybody has an up-to-date view of quality. Being smarter with data means our visits will be more targeted, with a sharper focus on what we need to look at.
• Safety through learning: We want all services to have stronger safety cultures. We’ll expect learning and improvement to be the primary response to all safety concerns in all types of service. When safety doesn’t improve, and services don’t learn lessons, we’ll take action to protect people.
• Accelerating improvement: We want to do more to make improvement happen. We’ll target the priority areas that need support the most. We want to see improvement within individual services, and in the way they work together as a system to make sure people get the care they need.

You can read our full strategy in more detail here: www.cqc.org.uk/strategy2021consultation

The consultation will run for 8 weeks, closing on 4 March 2021.