Who are the Care Quality Commission (CQC)

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for all health and adult social care services in England. It is their job to make sure that all care services in the UK are of an appropriate standard. The services that are regulated by the CQC include hospitals, GP practices, dental practices, ambulance services, care homes and home-care agencies.

For the purpose of this article, we will discuss care homes rather than the other regulated services.

All of these organisations require a CQC inspection before they can commence delivering their services. They are also routinely inspected whilst they continue to operate and again need to satisfy the CQC that they are operating correctly.  During initial and on-going inspections, they ask a number of questions as follows:

  • Is the service safe?
  • Is the service caring?
  • Is the service responsive?
  • Is the service effective?
  • Is the service well-led?

If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’ then the service will have met the ‘fundamental standards’ of quality and safety. The CQC lay out the following fundamental standards that people have a legal right to expect:

  • You must have enough to eat and drink to keep you in good health while you receive care.
  • You must have care or treatment that is tailored to you and meets your needs and preferences.
  • You must be always treated with dignity and respect while you are receiving care and treatment.
  • You (or anybody legally acting on your behalf) must give your consent before any care or treatment is given to you.
  • The place where you receive care and treatment and the equipment used in it must be clean, suitable, and looked after properly.
  • If something goes wrong with your care and treatment, the provider of your care must tell you what has happened, provide support, and apologise.
  • The provider of your care must have enough suitably qualified, competent and experienced staff to make sure they can meet these standards.
  • The provider of your care must have a system to handle and respond to complaints.
  • You must not be given unsafe care or treatment or be put at risk of harm that could be avoided.
  • You must not suffer any form of abuse or improper treatment while receiving care.
  • The provider of your care must have plans that make sure they can meet these standards.
  • The provider of your care must display their CQC rating in a place where you can see it.
  • The provider of your care must only employ people who can provide care and treatment appropriate to their role.

Outcomes of inspections

The CQC publishes reports and ratings about the quality of the services they inspect to help people make informed choices about their care. The reports show the detail on each of the five key questions about the service. They list all their good findings as well as things that could be improved.

With most services and all care homes the CQC include ratings in their reports to help people understand how good each local service is. The different ratings they issue are as follows:

  • Outstanding
  • Good
  • Requires Improvement
  • Inadequate

Each care home receives an overall rating as well as an individual rating for each of the five key questions. These are legally required to be displayed in the care home and on the company’s website.

For more information or if you wish to discuss care for your loved one please email care@greensleeves.org.uk