In our Annual report and accounts 2014/15 out today, we reflect on how we have progressed from designing, testing and evaluating our new, rigorous and expert-led way of monitoring, inspecting and regulating health and adult social care services across England, to implementing it. This is so that we can make sure people get safe, high quality and compassionate care.
Our inspections are now more detailed and intensive than before. We involve specialist teams (including sector-specific inspectors, experts in the field and people who have experience of care), make better use of evidence, and based them on what matters most to people who use services – whether the services are safe, caring, effective, responsive to their needs, and well-led.
Most inspections then lead to ratings of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate – moving away from reporting on legal compliance against standards to providing a more transparent understanding of the quality of services.
By the end of 2014/15, we had inspected 7,038 providers and locations using its new inspection model; of which, 3,180 led to ratings.
David Behan, Chief Executive of the Care Quality Commission, said: "We have radically transformed how we regulate health and adult social care services in England, with rigorous and expert-led inspections and ratings to drive improvement and through increased transparency help people make informed choices about their care.
"We will always act independently and remain on the side of people who use services, their families and their carers – they are entitled to receive safe, high-quality and compassionate care.
"I would like to thank our staff and our partners for the immense hard work they have put into the last twelve months and for their commitment in delivering the changes needed."
Also in 2014/15, we:
- Launched our 'intelligent monitoring' system for GP practices and mental health services, building on the system we introduced in the previous year for acute NHS trusts. The tool can flag potential concerns about services and can help CQC to plan its inspections.
- Developed and introduced 'special measures' regimes for primary medical and adult social care services, following its introduction for the NHS in 2013/14. The regime sets a limited period for providers rated as Inadequate to make the necessary improvements or face restrictions or closure.
- Carried out 1,179 enforcement actions, received 90,606 pieces of safeguarding information, completed 36,269 registration processes, carried out 1,253 Mental Health Act Reviewer visits, and dealt with 1.4 million transactions from its National Customer Service Centre.
For further information, read our report or its accompanying infographic.