More detail has been published about the new CQC approach to regulation, which will take into account information provided by others, including their experiences of care services. The criteria applied to judging the frequency of assessments will change, as will the way quality is assessed.
In its new approach, CQC will gather evidence to support its judgements in a different ways and at different times – not just through on-site inspections. The service’s rating will no longer be the main driver for deciding the timing of a future assessment – evidence or information collected at any time will be able to trigger an assessment. Judgements about quality will be made more regularly instead of after an inspection. Evidence from a variety of sources and quality statements will be considered in assessing quality. Assessments will be more structured and transparent, using evidence categories as part of the assessment framing and giving a score for findings. The way decisions are made over ratings will be clearer and easier to understand.
The rating system of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate will remain, but in the long-term CQC plans to also publish the scores as part of its assessment. This will bring more clarity and provide more insight on quality ratings. For instance, it will identify if a service rated Good is actually close to being Outstanding, or conversely Requires Improvement. It will also identify if the quality of a service is moving up or down within its rating.
The new approach will be refined and improved as the CQC starts to test and introduce it for providers. All providers will be notified when the new assessment framework will affect them.
The full details of the new CQC approach are available to view here.
