Regulations
Has the CQC raised more questions than answers?
Royds Withy King lawyer Mei-Ling Huang examines the Care Quality Commission’s proposals on inspections, ratings and future consultation and explains what they could mean for care providers
In January, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) published two new consultations. The first, published on 7 January, is entitled The world of health and social care is changing. So are we.1 The purpose of the consultation is to
explain the CQC’s strategy for the next five years and to obtain feedback. This is a broad consultation, seemingly aimed at the general public, which ended on 4 March. The CQC also launched a second
consultation, entitled Consultation on changes for flexible regulation,2
which is
more focused on health and social care providers. The second consultation merits the attention of care providers considerably more than the first. The deadline for submitting views on the second consultation was 23 March. Here, I will give a brief overview of both
consultations, along with a summary of their potential impact.
The world of health and social care is changing. So are we The first consultation is aimed at the general public and sets out four broad themes as follows.
relationships with services, built on openness and trust’. In addition, the CQC wants to reduce
duplication of demands for information, and develop a stronger culture of safety. The regulator has an ambition to lead to drive improvement and innovation, it says. None of this is contentious.
1. People and Communities. 2. Smarter Regulation. 3. Safety Through Learning. 4. Accelerating Improvement.
Among these themes, there are ambitions that care providers and managers will welcome. For example, under the People and Communities theme, the CQC says that it wants to empower people to drive change. Under the Smarter Regulation theme,
the CQC says that it wants to assess quality continuously and update ratings more frequently. The CQC wants to use its regulatory powers in a smarter, more proportionate way. It say it wants to ‘develop ongoing, collaborative
Unfortunately, the CQC has not said how it is going to achieve any of it. The consultation questions are not
likely to garner meaningful feedback. At the end of each of its four themes, the CQC asks the same two questions: ‘To what extent do you support the ambitions set out in this theme?’ and ‘Please give more details to explain why you chose this answer.’ Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide
useful feedback about an ambition. To take a hypothetical example, if I said that my ambition was to be the best parent in the world, nobody could criticise my well- intentioned goal. What I actually need is to explain the
steps I will take to become a better parent. Ambitions are meaningless without a well thought out plan.
April 2021 •
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
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