The CQC Way Forward?
17/02/2025
On Friday 14th February, Lauren Byrne, Policy and Campaigns Lead at Care Rights UK attended an event run by the Care Quality Commission to explore co-creating “The CQC Way”. Following a series of reviews into the effectiveness of the CQC, a series of transformations have been commissioned to improve the effectiveness of the English regulator.
The event brought together hundred of people across health and social care, including CQC staff and executives, organisations representing people using services, people using services and other stakeholders. The event began with an introduction from new Chief Executive, Julian Hartley, who detailed the immediate actions that have been taken since he began in December as a result of sector feedback, colleague feedback and the independent reviews that have been carried out.
Immediate actions and foundational improvements taken recently by the CQC.
We began the day by reflecting on our hopes and fears about this process - our feedback focussed on the need to hear from people with lived experience, and the importance of good regulation ensuring high-quality, safe care is available for all who need it. Our main concern is that the changes that are taking place will not flow through to improve the experiences of people who are experiencing serious concerns about the quality of their care.
Later in the day we discussed the purpose and vision of the organisation. CQC seems to be at a crossroads, determining whether they exist to set the fundamental standards through regulation, or whether they are there to support providers to achieve high quality care. There was broad consensus in the room that it’s increasingly frustrating that CQC still seem unable to define what “Good” looks like.
Throughout the day there was a large focus on working collaboratively with providers and people using services. When discussing CQC’s purpose, we fed back that it should refer to serving people who use health and care services, not just working with them. They must take proactive steps to support these individuals, by conducting unplanned inspections to get a real picture of the current state of their care, and take active steps to overcome communication differences, working with the loved ones of the individual to understand their experience. We also emphasised the importance of providing quality, person-centred care.
In terms of their vision of setting the standard for safe, quality care, we fed back that “setting the standards” implies just the baseline - for people accessing health or care services, they need to regulate and push providers with low ratings that put people at risk to urgently improve.
Draft regulatory principles
We hope that this day will be part of a process of serious change and improvement for the CQC, to deliver urgent support and accountability for poor care.
We are continually in touch with colleagues at the CQC to give feedback and try to push for improvements for the people we support. If you have questions or would like to feedback your experience, please get in touch.