Annual report and accounts 2022/23

We are pleased to introduce this report and accounts outlining the performance of the Care Quality Commission during the financial year 2022/23. The substantial delay in the provision of this report is beyond our control – it is due to delays in information from Local Government Pension Schemes. This information is material to our accounts.

We have evaluated the options available to address the delays – unfortunately we expect the delays will continue for the foreseeable future.

In relation to the 2022/23 year, we would emphasise the following performance outcomes in our priority areas - more detail can be found in this report:

• In our priority for people and communities, we focused our regulatory activity around specific population groups and types of services. This was to gather further evidence to inform our regulatory activity and to target improvements to reduce inequalities. This work covered services for autistic people and people with a learning disability, services for people using maternity services, observations for people receiving mental health treatment, and oral health services for people in care homes.
• In our priority for smarter regulation through our regulatory approach, we began implementation of our new assessment framework, which was the result of over 2 years of co-production and consultation with a range of people.
• In our priority for safety through learning, we strengthened our regulatory approach to make clear that we expect services and providers to have a proactive and positive culture of safety based on openness and honesty, in which concerns about safety are listened to, safety events are investigated and reported thoroughly, and lessons are learned to continually identify and embed good practices. 
• In our priority for accelerating improvement, we laid the groundwork for our next research to understand how we create change most effectively and how our impact mechanisms apply at a local system level.

Since the 2022/23 period, we have continued to progress with the delivery of our strategic objectives. Central to this has been the work undertaken on our regulatory transformation programme. More detail about the highlights and challenges with this programme will be contained in the 2023/24 annual report and accounts.

Since 31 March 2023 there have been some changes in our Board membership. We welcomed four new non-executive directors, including a new Chair of our Audit and Risk Assurance Committee. At the end of June 2024, Ian Trenholm stood down as Chief Executive, Board member and Accounting Officer. On 1 July 2024, Kate Terroni was appointed as the Interim Chief Executive and is now the Accounting Officer.

We would like to thank colleagues for their unrelenting commitment to our purpose. Without them we could not have delivered the results we share in this report.

Ian Dilks OBE
Chair

Kate Terroni
Interim Chief Executive