Care Quality Commission
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) are the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. They ensure that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, responsive, well-led, compassionate, high-quality care and also encourage health and social care providers to make improvements to the services and quality of care they provide.
The CQC register care providers, monitor, inspect and rate services and take action to protect the people who use services.
The Government published ‘Fundamental Standards’ regulations for all NHS Foundation Trusts to comply with; (Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014).
In order to help ensure that providers comply with the regulations, the CQC use 5 key questions to assess the quality of a service;
- Are they safe? (protected from abuse and avoidable harm)
- Are they effective? (people's care, treatment and support achieves good outcomes, promotes a good quality of life and is based on the best available evidence)
- Are they caring? (staff involve and treat people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect)
- Are they responsive to people’s needs? (services are organised so that they meet people’s needs)
- Are they well-led? (leadership, management and governance of the organisation assures the delivery of high-quality person-centred care, supports learning and innovation, and promotes an open and fair culture)
You can share your experiences of SWASFT by telling the CQC here.