The CQC are changing how they regulate services. They are moving to a single assessment framework, with new powers to assess integrated care systems and local authorities. Their new strategy strengthens their commitment to ensure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and encourage services to improve. Their purpose and role as a regulator won’t change but how they will work will be different.

Their ambitious strategy sets out 4 themes:

People and communities– They will focus more on people’s needs and experiences and on what’s important to people when they access, use and move between services. They will work in partnership with people who use services and help build better care around them.

Smarter regulation–  They will use smarter, more flexible methods of regulating services by providing up-to-date information and ratings. By doing so they will target resources where they will have the greatest impact. On-site inspections won’t be the only way to assess the quality of services, as they become more intelligent and data-focused. They are currently building digital platforms to integrate the data they hold, enabling them to act more quickly in a more targeted way. They will make it easier for services to work with them.

Safety through learning – They will ensure strong safety cultures across health and social care, by prioritising learning and improvement. Assessments of safety will have a sharper focus and insights and learning around safety will be shared. Where services fail to act on safety issues, they will use their powers to act quickly and take action to keep people safe.

Accelerating improvement– They will encourage continuous improvement by being clearer on the standards that they and the people who use the service expect and promote a culture of improvement. They’ll work in partnership with services and encourage innovation and research to help improve the quality of care.

The new strategy will look at how care is provided in a local system to improve outcomes for people and reduce the inequalities in their care. The new government amendment to the Health and Social Care Act sets out new powers for the CQC to have oversight of Integrated Care Systems to look more effectively at how care is provided in a local area. The new proposals also mean that the CQC will inspect local authorities and gain assurances of how they are delivering their duties under the Care Act 2014. The CQC will start to roll out new elements of their approach in stages working with a small group of providers. A new provider portal will be launched and it is envisaged that this will be operational by the end of the year, with January 2023 set to commence the full rollout of the CQC’s new way of regulating.