The Care Quality Commission (CQC) monitors, inspects and regulates services in England that provide health and social care. The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for the Commission's assessment activity to be more targeted and focused, depending less on ‘physical’ site inspections and pre-inspection information requests. 

The Care Quality Commission is currently in the process of developing a new five-year strategy, to run from 2021 – 2026. While it is carrying out a programme of engagement around the new strategy, CQC has also launched a consultation on proposals to make its work and its ratings more flexible. This report covers the responses to that consultation.

The pandemic has made clear that some of the ways CQC currently works prevents it from being flexible and responding to situations as they happen. Following on from the consultation on its new strategy and ambitions launched in January 2021, CQC is now proposing some specific changes to address ongoing challenges from the pandemic which CQC hopes will enable it to be a more dynamic, proportionate and flexible regulator.

CQC’s inspection reports and ratings inform the public, service providers and stakeholders about the quality of care. CQC wants to make the way it assesses and rates services more flexible, so it can update ratings more often in a more accessible, responsive and proportionate way. The changes should make ratings easier to understand for everyone.

This resources summarise the responses, from the public and organisations, to the consultation on these proposals.