- Published: 28/09/2022
- Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The new single assessment framework
The CQC will start to introduce it in phases and be clear when it will directly affect health and care providers. They are publishing the new framework now so that providers and other stakeholders can start to become familiar with it.
From 18 July 2022, providers and others will be able to read more about the quality statements and evidence categories. They have build on this with more detail about how it will work in practice over the coming weeks and months. For example, information on the evidence we’ll require in their assessments of each service type and what their assessments will look like.
What’s different
They’ve already confirmed that the quality ratings and five key questions will stay central to their approach. But by replacing the existing key lines of enquiry (KLOEs) and prompts with new ‘quality statements’. These will reduce the duplication that’s in the four current separate assessment frameworks to allow them to focus on specific topic areas under each key question, and will link to the relevant regulations to make it easier for providers.
The CQC call the quality statements ‘we statements’ as they’re written from a provider’s perspective to help them understand what we expect of them. They draw on previous work developed with Think Local Act Personal (TLAP), National Voices and the Coalition for Collaborative Care on Making it Real. They wanted to maintain that ethos when developing our assessment framework.
Importantly, they’ll base the assessments of quality in all types of services, and at all levels, on this single assessment framework. For local authorities and integrated care systems, they will use a subset of the quality statements.
To make the judgements more structured and consistent, they have also developed six categories for the evidence they collect:
- people’s experiences
- feedback from staff and leaders
- observations of care
- feedback from partners
- processes
- outcomes of care.
The CQC want to be clearer with providers and the public about how they use the information about care in a service or local area. So, for each quality statement they’ll state which evidence will always be needed to collect and look at.
To fulfil the ambitions in the strategy, the assessment framework emphasises the need to create cultures that learn and improve, and they have set expectations for how services and providers need to work together, and within systems, to plan and deliver safe, person-centred care.
Walkthrough of CQC's new regulatory approach
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