The independent regulator of
health and social care in England

CQC is changing

19 October 2023

A regular update for providers and professionals about the changes we're making to how we work

New assessments starting from 21 November in our South region

From 21 November we will start using our new single assessment framework in our South region.

Between 21 November and 4 December we will undertake a small number of planned assessments with 14 early adopter providers, whilst continuing to respond to risk. We will then expand our new assessment approach to all providers based on a risk-informed schedule.

We are sharing more information with providers in the south separately and will be in touch with providers in other areas of the country to confirm when we'll start using our new approach with them shortly.

NOTE: At this stage our new assessment approach will not apply to services we do not rate or NHS trust well-led assessments. We'll be in contact with those providers with the detail of how we'll roll out our new approach with them.

The South region includes services registered in these counties:Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Kent, Oxfordshire, Somerset, Surrey, Sussex and Wiltshire.

Catch up on our latest webinar

In the second of our 'CQC is changing' webinar series, you can hear from Amanda Hutchinson, Head of Policy, Regulatory Change and Dave James, Head of Adult Social Care Policy.

Amanda and Dave introduce quality statements and evidence categories, and the role they play in our new regulatory approach.

We talked through where these two elements fit in the wider new regulatory approach and what guidance is available to help you understand them. Sharing example quality statements to explore how well use evidence categories to identify specific sources of evidence to use in our assessments.

How well do you understand how we're changing

To make sure we're sharing the right information at the right time about our new regulatory approach we'd like to understand how well you understand what we're changing.

Your feedback will mean we can give you more helpful information about our new regulatory approach.

Share your feedback on our latest guidance

We've recently published some new provider guidance that describes the evidence we'll use to assess individual quality statements for different types of providers.

We want to make sure this guidance gives you the information you need to understand this part of our new approach.

To help us understand that we'd like your feedback on the guidance.