Summary
The Care Quality Commission (the Commission) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It plays a vital role in ensuring people receive safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care. This is the third time this Committee has reported on the Commission since 2012 and it has improved significantly over this period. There remain areas where the Commission needs to improve its current performance. It does not make inspection reports available to the public quickly enough following an inspection and it needs to improve how it interacts with and regulates GP practices. It also has a number of challenges ahead. With health and care providers under severe financial pressure, the Commission’s workload is likely to increase if services deteriorate. The Commission needs to monitor this closely and understand the impact on its staff requirements. The Commission wants to move to a more intelligence-driven regulatory approach, but to do so it must improve its information systems. It also has more work to do to ensure it has the wide range of intelligence it needs to identify early warning signs of poor care. Since our evidence session, Sir David Behan has announced his retirement. The new Chief Executive will have a big task to ensure the Commission is able to tackle the big challenges that are on the horizon.
8 March 2018