Our new public engagement strategy

We have published a new strategy for how we will engage with people and with organisations that represent people.

The new strategy supports our organisational strategy published in 2021 and sets out how we will listen, inform and involve people and work in partnership with the organisations that represent people.

Since publishing our last public engagement strategy in 2017 we have made significant progress, for example, people are now more aware of CQC. Public awareness has increased from 51% in 2016 to 67% in 2021, with unprompted awareness increasing from 17% to 36% over the same period. Also, we doubled the number of experiences of care we hear through our Give Feedback on Care Service from 61,000 to 123,000 over the same period.

The new strategy will run to 2026 and has four objectives:

1. Build a trusted feedback service where people’s experiences drive improvements in care
   We want to enable and encourage people to give feedback about their experiences of accessing care, using care services and moving between services. This can be wherever and however they want to do this. We want people to feel their feedback is valued and to understand what impact it had.
2. Create a trusted, accessible public information service designed around people’s expectations and needs
   We want our information to be relevant, up-to-date and meaningful for people who use services. It should also reflect their experiences. We want people to be easily able to access our information and use it to make informed decisions, where they can, about where to go for care.
3. Develop an inclusive approach to proactively involving people who use services, their family, carers and organisations that represent or act on their behalf in shaping our plans, policies and products
   We want to involve a broader range of people and organisations that represent them in shaping our plans, policies and products. We would particularly like to include people who are more likely to have a poorer experience of care and who may face inequalities.
4. Work in partnership with organisations that represent or act on behalf of people who use services to improve care
   We want to continue to develop high-quality relationships with organisations that represent people who use services or act on their behalf. We recognise that these partnerships are fundamental to maintaining trust and confidence with the public and to delivering our strategic ambitions.