CQC’s new inspection model for adult social care

The CQC has outlined their priorities for transforming how (from October) they will monitor, inspect and regulate care homes and other adult social care services in England. These included:

• Structuring inspections around the five key questions that matter most to people – are the services safe, caring, effective, well-led and responsive to people’s needs.

• Establishing expert inspection teams involving specialist inspectors and more people who have experience of care services.

The CQC will begin testing their new approach from April alongside a full public consultation so they written to a sample of providers to invite them to be part of this initial testing stage.

The providers have been selected to cover a geographical spread and mix of adult social care services for older people, learning disability, children’s (hospices) and mental health over a spread of locations and types of service so that they can fully test the new approach in these different circumstances. Providers have been asked to complete a ‘Provider Information Return’, which will include information against the five key questions, as well as data this will help their inspectors to decide what they should focus on during their visits. Further testing with a larger sample of inspections will begin in July, after they have evaluated the feedback from the initial testing round.

About the CQC’s new approach to inspecting adult social care services

The new approach will be rolled out across all adult social care services from October. This is when they will begin to award ratings for adult social care services, stating whether they are:

• Outstanding
• Good
• Require improvement
• Inadequate

Adult social care is the largest and fastest growing sector that CQC regulates and its services support people with a huge range of needs so the CQC seem determined to ensure that the new inspections and ratings will help to strengthen their methods so that they are robust, consistent and always on the side of people who use services.
Find out about their priorities in the document below.