About us

What we do and how we do it

About us What we do and how we do it 1

We are the Care Quality Commission
(CQC), the independent regulator of
health and adult social care in England.
We make sure health and social care services provide people with
safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage
care services to improve.

We register health and adult social care

services that meet the ‘fundamental
standards’ of quality and safety.
Before a care provider can carry out any of the activities that we
regulate, they must register with us and satisfy us that they will
be able to meet a number of legal requirements, including the
fundamental standards on the next page. Activities we regulate
include the treatment, care and support provided by hospitals,
GP practices, dental practices, ambulance services, care homes and
home-care agencies.

2 About us What we do and how we do it

 You have a right to expect the following
fundamental standards.
You must have enough You must have care You must be treated
to eat and drink to keep or treatment that is with dignity and
you in good health while tailored to you and respect at all times while
you receive care and meets your needs and you’re receiving care
treatment. preferences. and treatment.

The place where

You (or anybody legally
you receive care and
acting on your behalf)
treatment and the
must give your consent
equipment used in it
before any care or
must be clean, suitable
treatment is given
and looked after
to you.
properly.

You must not be

You must not suffer The provider of your care
given unsafe care or
any form of abuse or must have a system to
treatment or be put at
improper treatment while handle and respond
risk of harm that could
receiving care. to complaints.
be avoided.

The provider of your If something goes wrong

care must have enough with your care and
suitably qualified, treatment, the provider of
competent and your care must tell you
experienced staff to what has happened,
make sure they can meet provide support and
these standards. apologise.

The provider of your

The provider of your care The provider of your care
care must only employ
must have plans that must display their CQC
people who can provide
make sure they can rating in a place where
care and treatment
meet these standards. you can see it.
appropriate to their role.

About us What we do and how we do it 3

We monitor and inspect services to see whether they
are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Once a service has registered with us, we monitor it continuously.
The information we gather, which includes the views of the public,
helps us decide when, where and what to inspect.
Inspections give us an opportunity to talk to staff and people who
use services. They also allow us to observe care and to check the
systems and processes that the service uses. We may also look at
people’s records to see how their needs are managed, following
strict rules about protecting their information.
There are five questions we ask of all care services. They are at the
heart of the way we regulate and they help us to make sure we
focus on the things that matter to you. We ask the following ‘key
questions’ of each service.
• Is it safe? Are you protected from abuse and avoidable harm?
• Is it effective? Does your care, treatment and support achieve
good results and help you maintain your quality of life, and is it
based on the best available evidence?
• Is it caring? Do staff involve you and treat you with compassion,
kindness, dignity and respect?
• Is it responsive? Are services organised so that they can meet
your needs?
• Is it well-led? Does the leadership of the organisation make
sure that it’s providing high-quality care that’s based around
your needs? And does it encourage learning and innovation and
promote an open and fair culture?

4 About us What we do and how we do it

We protect the rights of people made vulnerable
by their circumstances, including those whose
rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act.
We are responsible for monitoring and reporting on the use of the
Mental Health Act (MHA), and our findings guide our ratings of
services. We visit people whose rights are restricted by the MHA,
and act on any matters of concern. We also provide a service to
safeguard (protect) patients who refuse their treatment or are
considered to be unable to give their consent.

We listen to and act on your experiences.

Information about your experience of care is very important to us.
It helps us to make sure that health and social care services in
England provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and
high-quality care. It also helps us prevent poor care and abuse
happening in the future. See the back page for how to contact us.
However, it is important to know that we cannot make complaints
for you, or take them up on your behalf, because we do not have the
powers to investigate or resolve them. The only exception to this is
for people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act.

We involve the public and people who receive

care in our work, and we work in partnership
with other organisations and local groups.
We involve people who use health and social care services in all areas
of our work, including our inspections. Some of the organisations we
work with include Healthwatch England, NHS Improvement, NHS
England and Ofsted.

About us What we do and how we do it 5

We publish information about the quality
of individual services, including reports and
ratings, to help people choose their care.
After each inspection, we produce a report and publish it on our
website. The reports set out what our findings on each of the five
key questions mean for the people who use the service. We describe
the good practice we find, as well as any concerns we have.
In most cases our reports include ratings to help you understand
how good each local service is. Our ratings are:

outstanding

good We give the service an overall rating

which it must display to the public.
requires We also give a rating for each of our
improvement five key questions.

inadequate

We take action if care services are failing

to meet the fundamental standards.
If we find that care has fallen short of the fundamental standards,
we use our powers to:
• protect you from harm and make sure you receive care that meets
the standards you have a right to expect; and
• make sure services improve.

6 About us What we do and how we do it

The actions we take depend on how serious the problems we have
identified are and how they affect the people who use the service.
We may do the following.
• Give care providers notices setting out what improvements they
must make and by when.
• Hold the care provider to account by:
- issuing simple cautions;
- issuing fines;
- prosecuting cases where people are harmed or placed in danger
of harm.
• Limit what the care provider may do for a set time.
• Place a care provider in ‘special measures’, which gives them a
clear timetable within which they must improve the quality of care
they provide or we will take further action (for example, cancel
their registration).

We publish regional and national views of the

quality of health and social care, and encourage
improvement by highlighting good practice.
As a regulator and inspector we can provide a unique view on the
quality of health and adult social care in England, helping to share
learning and encourage improvement across the sectors. We carry
out and publish reviews and specific inspection programmes that
focus on particular aspects of health and social care, including:
• the experiences of certain groups of people;
• how different services work together to care for people; and
• the quality of particular services, or all services, in an area.

About us What we do and how we do it 7

How to contact us
Call us 03000 616161
Email us [email protected]
Look at our website www.cqc.org.uk
Write to us Care Quality Commission, Citygate,
Gallowgate, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4PA
Follow us on Twitter @CareQualityComm
Please contact us if you would like this booklet in
another language or format.

How we use your information

If you have given us your contact details we will make sure
your information is protected and kept secure. We will not
usually share your information without your permission, but
there may be exceptional circumstances where we need to do
this. We will keep any details you give us in line with the Data
Protection Act 1998 and our Code of Practice on Confidential
Personal Information (see www.cqc.org.uk/privacy).

CQC-005-25000-WL-042017