Returning to ‘good’ regulation and looking ahead
Care Quality Commission Chief Executive, Julian Hartley, reflects on his first 6 weeks in the role and looks ahead to the focus for the coming months
One of the most important things that brought me to this role was a recognition of the vital role of regulation in making sure people receive safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care, and in encouraging improvement in health and care services. When regulation is good, it delivers this purpose.
For us to be the high-quality regulator we want to be, we know there is a way to go. But we are starting to make the changes we need to.
Many of you have already told us how we need to improve and what we need to change. Your feedback has been invaluable in helping me to decide where we need to focus our improvement and what else needs to be done to return to being a ‘good’ regulator.
Returning to ‘good’ regulation
We are taking some immediate actions to make sure we can publish reports, carry out more assessments, clear our registration backlog, and make sure we’ve acted promptly on information of concern and notifications.
At the same time as delivering these immediate actions, we will also deliver a foundational piece of work to re-focus on our purpose and ensure we have the right values that guide our work. This will involve developing a set of behavioural expectations for how we’ll work together with providers, the public and stakeholders. For now, we’re calling this work ‘The CQC Way’ and it will run alongside and support other improvement work we need to deliver.
At the end of last year, I commissioned an independent review to look at the failures in the implementation of our new technology, with the aim of learning lessons and identifying the way forward. In addition to the changes we’ve made to our scoring and reporting, we’re taking immediate action to increase the number of assessments we carry out and to enable new assessments, work through our technical issues, and to make sure the registration process is working effectively. Alongside all of this, we are currently in the process of recruiting 4 permanent chief inspectors.
The changes we’re making are focused on enabling us to complete more and better-quality assessments at a faster pace. This will provide a more up-to-date view of quality across health and social care. We are already making progress and will keep you updated on this.
Building the foundations for ‘good’ regulation
I am committed to working in partnership with colleagues in CQC, people who use services, health and social care providers and stakeholders to develop these improvements.
An organisation can only deliver its purpose, and be trusted and credible, if its work is underpinned by the right values and ways of working. It’s been clear to me from the conversations I’ve had with colleagues, providers, and stakeholders that while there is support for our purpose, we are not always acting in a way that enables us to deliver it.
One of my areas of focus in early 2025 is the work we are undertaking collaboratively with our colleagues, providers, the public and other stakeholders to help guide a cultural change at CQC. This builds on feedback we have already heard and will help us become a truly collaborative and effective regulator — above all, a regulator that puts people at the heart of everything we do.
At the end of this work, we will set out a charter that describes how CQC will work to deliver its purpose and what you should expect as a provider, stakeholder, or member of the public.
So, what does this year look like for CQC? Well, our immediate focus is on taking the key actions internally to fix and improve our processes. We will continue the foundational improvements and to engage on what needs to change on our assessment approach and to re-focus our purpose. Later in the year, we will consult on our regulatory approach.
We have a journey ahead of us, but we are committed to working collaboratively to ensuring the regulation we carry out meets its core purpose — to keep people safe and ensure they receive the care they deserve.
