Our new assessment framework enables us to focus on people’s human rights when they receive health and care services. 

It helps us prevent failures in care that are often related to risks to human rights and to ensure people receive good care.

The quality statements in the assessment framework are aligned to human rights principles. These FREDA principles are:

• fairness
• respect
• equality
• dignity
• autonomy.

When people tell us about what matters to them when using services, these human rights principles feature strongly. The Health and Social Care Act regulations are also designed to be compliant with human rights law. So, our assessment framework and the regulations also help support legal compliance. This includes, for example with the Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998. It should be a priority for CQC and for commissioners, providers, and their staff to protect and promote people’s human rights.

Two of our evidence categories are particularly important for our human rights approach:

• People’s experience of health and care services: This means we will listen to and gather people’s experiences of care as evidence. And this evidence is given the right amount of importance in our assessments of the quality of care.
• Feedback from staff and leaders: This supports us to listen more effectively to experiences of frontline staff . We can then take action sooner to protect the rights of people using services and staff.

See our human rights approach to find out:

• about the essential link between care that respects human rights and the quality of care
• how we will develop our approach to human rights in regulation