What we do
We regulate health and adult social care services in England, whether they're provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. And, we protect the rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act.
Our strategy sets out what we want to achieve for people who use health care and social care, and how we will go about our work over the next five years.
- Download our five-year strategy (PDF, 348 KB)
- Download the responses to our five-year strategy (PDF, 138KB, opens in new window)
Download our five-year strategy in alternative formats:
Five-year strategy: Summary (DOC, 92KB, opens in new window)
Five-year strategy: Easy read (PDF, 1234KB, opens in new window)
Five-year strategy: Audio (MP3, 4118KB, opens in new window)
We are driven by the outcomes that people who use services say are important to them, and we focus on what we can do to make a real difference to people.
We have five priorities:
- Making sure that care is centred on people's needs and protects their rights: we want people to be able to shape their own care.
- Championing joined-up care: we will look at how well health care and social care services work together.
- Acting swiftly to eliminate poor quality care: people have a right to expect that, if a service falls below essential standards of quality and safety, this is identified and acted on quickly.
- Promoting high quality care: where we see that care is improving, we will tell other organisations that provide or buy care so they can learn from what is working well.
- Regulating effectively, in partnership: we will work with other organisations to improve the quality of life for communities and local people.
In everything we do, we consistently focus on equalities and human rights, and pay particular attention to the needs of people in more vulnerable circumstances.
We will deliver these priorities through our four main activities:
- Registration and enforcement: from 2010, the cornerstone of our regulatory activity is the new system of registration. It means that people can expect services to meet essential standards of quality and safety that respect their dignity and protect their rights.
Find out more about registration and enforcement
- Improving health and social care: we encourage improvement by providing independent, reliable and up-to-date information about the quality of providers' care, as well as carrying out special reviews and studies about particular types of care.
Find out more about improving health and social care
- Mental Health Act visits: we monitor the care of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act, and make sure that their interests are protected.
Find out more about our Mental Health Act visits in our section for professionals
- Reporting health and social care information: in all of our work, we publish information on the quality of care to help people make decisions about their care.
Find out more about reporting health and social care information
- Activities we regulate: we regulate a wide range of activities carried out by health and social services including personal care, maternity and midwifery services and nursing care.
