The Care Quality Commission checks whether hospitals, care homes and care services are meeting government standards. Visit our website at www.cqc.org.uk.

Hospitals

Care homes

Dentists

Care in your home

Other services

Judgement framework and enforcement policy consultation

We stopped collecting responses for this consultation on 9 December 2011. We will publish our results shortly.

We are simplifying and strengthening our regulatory model to reflect our focus on our core business of monitoring and inspecting and to build on what we have learned in the last 18 months.

The changes we are proposing to make will result in most services being inspected more often and our inspections becoming more targeted. Where we find providers are not meeting their legal requirements, swift action will follow.

As a result of these changes, we need to make changes to our key guidance and the purpose of this consultation is to give the public, providers, commissioners, stakeholders and our staff the chance to comment.

To ensure the continuation of joined-up regulation in health, Monitor, the foundation trust regulator, will look at how to reflect changes to the CQC’s operations in its own regulatory approach.

In addition to the changes to our guidance, we will also be improving the way we publish information for the public to ensure it is clear, accessible and supports choice.