Care Quality Commission

We are the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We make sure health and social care services in England provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care. Above all else, we are always on the side of people who use services and always put their interests first.

Who we are and what we do  

Openness and honesty when things go wrong

Put simply, Duty of Candour (which was introduced for NHS services on 27 November last year, and all other health and adult social care from April 2015), means that all health and social care organisations in England, will have a legal duty placed upon them to be open and honest with patients and families about their care and treatment, including any mistakes in care that may have caused avoidable harm.

Our professional adviser on patient safety, James Titcombe says "I regularly meet with patients and families who have experience of things going badly wrong in health care. Too often, the aftermath of such circumstances are compounded by what seems to be a defensive response.

"Families can find themselves in a protracted process of what seems to be a battle to get the truth. I don’t think this is acceptable and believe that when avoidable mistakes in health care are made, the priority should be open and honest reporting and learning from what happened."

Read more in his blog here Openness and honesty in health and social care when things go wrong.

Pilot dental inspections published

Having trialled its new style dental inspections earlier this year with twelve dental practices, CQC will now be rolling out its dental inspection programme across England, with practices randomly being selected for inspection. Our inspections will always include practices which have been identified as presenting a risk or concern.

Under the new approach, inspection of dental practices includes using specially trained inspectors accompanied by dental advisors to see if services provided are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Unlike other regulated sectors, primary care dental services will not be given a rating till later in 2015/16.

Professor Steve Field, CQC’s Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services, said: "Good dental care plays an important role in people’s health and wellbeing. Having poor oral health has been shown to be linked with many other health diseases such as stroke, diabetes and heart disease. It also has a negative effect on a person’s quality of life, such as not sleeping or eating properly.

"With an increase in the ageing population, and as more older people retain their teeth for longer, their dental needs will increase. I passionately believe that everyone in our society deserves safe, high-quality, accessible primary dental care regardless of their circumstances."

Listening events

 As we inspect hospital services, we ask for your comments and feedback about any experiences of care you may have had. This in invaluable in terms of helping inform our inspections and final reports, and identifying specific issues for us to look into during an inspection.

Whether your experiences of care (or those of a loved one) have been good or bad, if you, or a loved one, has received care in the last year, we want to hear about it. You can either come along to one of our events, or share your views online.

Our Listening Events are also an opportunity for you to share feedback on what sort of improvements you’d like to see, find out more about our inspections and talk to us (in confidence if you like) about your experiences of care.

Our next events are for Great Ormond Street, on the 25 March, and South Tyneside NHS Foundation Trust on the 27 April.

Latest news

GP special measures

We’re proposing that when we rate a practice Inadequate overall, it will automatically be placed in special measures. This will give the GP practice access to a package of support from NHS England. If its rating has not improved within a year, we will cancel its registration.

Special measures will work alongside our existing powers. If we have serious concerns about a GP practice, we will take immediate action to make sure people get safe, high-quality and compassionate care. We’d like your feedback on our proposals before we finalise our approach for April 2015. You can read more about our proposals here and tell us what you think of our plans by joining our public community. (Closing date for comments 5 February).

Choosing care: GP services

90% of people have their first health or social care contact through their GPs. We can help you find a GP to register with and we inspect GP services to make sure they are safe, well-led, caring, effective and responsive to people’s needs.

From the autumn we are also introducing ratings for GP services which will include looking at how GPs support particular groups including older people and those from marginalised communities.

Click here for top tips on choosing care through your GP.

Get involved

Involving the public in our work is important to us. It helps us do the best job possible in identifying strengths and weaknesses of the care services we regulate and inspect.

We work with patients, their families and carers through our Online Community Network, our Speak Out Network, Action Team and working with Healthwatch; the independent consumer champion. 

This microsite is sponsored by Care Quality Commission.