The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the new health and social care regulator for the whole of England. The CQC look at the whole picture of the health and social care sector. Their aim is to ensure there is better care for everyone, this includes people in hospital, in a care home or those who receive care in their own homes.

Who are the CQC?

The CQC is the independent regulator of all adult health and social care in England.

Their vision is of high quality social care which:

• Helps people and their carers make informed choices about their care
• Responds to service users needs; and
• Supports everyone to live independent and healthy lives.

When they say high quality care, they mean domiciliary care standards that:

• Is safe, not just for the service users but also the care workers
• Is a pleasant experience for the people who use it, their carers and also their families
• Has the right outcomes for service users, including clinical outcomes
• Is readily available to those who need it at times when they need it
• Provides real good value for money; and
• Helps contribute to prevent illness, and promotes healthy, independent living.

The care standards commission values are to:

• Be expert and authoritative, basing their actions on good high quality evidence
• Work with the service providers and the professions to agree the core definitions of quality
• Put the people who use the services first, be well informed by what they tell us and stand up for their rights and dignity
• Be independent, visible, open, transparent and accountable.
• Be a voice for joined up care across services

What the Care Quality Commission do..

They regulate the health and adult social care services in England, whether they're provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. They also protect the rights of people that have been detained under the Mental Health Act.

They make sure that core common quality standards are being met where care is provided and work towards the improvement of care services as a whole. They promote the rights and interests of people who use services and have a wide range of enforcement powers to take action on people's behalf if services are unacceptably poor and bad quality.

The main activities are:

• Monitoring and inspecting all health and adult social care
• Registering health and social care providers to ensure they are meeting core common quality standards
• Improve health and social care services by undertaking regular reviews of how well those who provide services locally are performing and special reviews on particular care services
• Using enforcement powers, such as fines and public warnings or closures, if the standards are not being met
• Reporting the outcomes so that people who use services have information about the quality of their social care services. It helps those who provide services to see where improvement is needed.

Whether you are a service user, care provider or care/support worker the Care Quality Commission is there to help us all promote good and fair practice in the care sector.

If you would like to contact someone from the CQC, then click here.

If you would like to see our current report and get an idea of how we are performing then please click here.