The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published a formal consultation on its new future strategy. This draft strategy is the result of over 10,000 interactions with stakeholders and is said to set a “bold ambition for CQC over the next five years.”
The strategy is built on four themes that together determine the changes CQC wants to make: people and communities; smarter regulation; safety through learning; and accelerating improvement. Running through each theme is an ambition to improve patient care by looking at how well health and care systems are working and how they’re acting to reduce inequalities.
Writing in a blog, Ian Trenholm, Chief Executive of CQC says: “We want our regulation to be more relevant to the present day, and continue to work in a flexible way to manage risk and uncertainty.”
The ambitions in the strategy also support the CQC response to the ongoing pandemic. “They help to give us the flexibility to respond to an ever-changing environment, to promote change and improvement, and to respond to concerns raised by people using and working in services to make sure they are as safe as they can be.”
The proposed changes reflect the nature in which delivering care has changed since CQC was established in 2009. Then it was a single provider service model. Today, with the shift to integrated care, it is very different. Hence CQC aims to adapt its approach to assess every stage of the patient’s journey through the health and care system, looking at both individual services and across different providers and organisations.
CQC will also seek to understand where digital services can meet people’s needs and improve their outcomes – and change the way it regulates them.
The consultation closes at 5pm on March 4, 2021.
