Business plan 2025/26

Contents

• Foreword
• Part 1: Our key priorities
• Part 2: Wider context for 2025/2026
• Appendix A: Immediate action measures
• Appendix B: Wider business performance measures
• Appendix C: Budget

Foreword

This plan is about laying the foundations for a new era at CQC after a very difficult time for the organisation and its people.

This is a refreshed business plan and it is rooted in the values of our people and our collective commitment to new and better ways of working together.

The organisation is learning from previous mistakes – we have listened to our people and our stakeholders, and we will continue this dialogue as we forge a better future that helps to drive improvement in the health and social care services that people need.

Our responsibility as a regulator is to ensure that we are delivering our legislative and statutory responsibilities. To achieve that, our explicit focus in this coming year is on rebuilding our foundations and a steadfast commitment to our core purpose. In this, we are indebted to the number of independent reports that have shed light on things that have gone wrong. This plan spells out how we intend to rebuild and fulfil our purpose.

While we work to re-establish ourselves, we acknowledge that this is happening at a time of great pressure for the organisations we regulate – and the health and care sector as a whole.

As we rebuild our regulatory approach we are focused on ‘what good looks like’ for each sector, and we will work with providers and the public to agree that together. Central to this, we have four chief inspectors with a wealth of expertise bringing a sharp focus on the sectors we regulate - and they are working together, as a team, in service of integrated care for all people who use health and social care services. This includes, for example, developing key guidance to support priority areas such as dementia.

We will be working closely with government and our stakeholders to support the priorities of the 10 Year Plan for Health, building those ambitions into how we improve our regulation and using our unique perspective to promote the quality of care as we do that in partnership.

Our priority is to conduct timely and high-quality inspections at pace to help everyone to understand the quality of care. That will be supplemented by bespoke assessment activity on priorities such as Independent Care (education) and Treatment Reviews and with local authorities, to help show a picture of the systemic impact of care.

This plan is for right now. We understand what our immediate actions must be in terms of foundational improvements aligned with the immediate and operational priorities. In this business planning year, we are laying the foundations for a fundamental change in our approach, as well as looking ahead towards a new organisational strategy and a long-term business plan.

We'll be co-producing the changes we want to make with our colleagues, providers, people who use services (including those whose voices are seldom heard) and wider stakeholders. And we will be agile to specific requests or input from the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, and our sponsor department in the year ahead.

Alongside our statutory responsibilities, we look forward to our role in helping a revitalised National Quality Board. We will also fulfil our legal obligations to comply with relevant public inquiries and represent the organisation’s interest by providing necessary documentation, evidence and statements. Currently, we are engaged in the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, the Thirlwall Inquiry, the Lampard Inquiry, and the Nottingham Inquiry, as well as the Independent Inquiry into the issues raised by the David Fuller case. Also, the independent investigation into maternity and neonatal care in England, led by Baroness Amos, and the Ockenden Maternity Review.

Sir Julian Hartley, Chief Executive

Professor Sir Mike Richards CBE, Chair

Part 1: Our key priorities

Our purpose, values and behaviours

Our purpose is: We regulate health and adult social care, we work together with the public, systems and providers of care to improve the quality of care, and to protect and promote the health, safety and welfare of people who use health and social care services.

We have developed a new approach to how we work together and deliver our purpose. It was created by us and for us, and in partnership with providers, the public, and wider stakeholders.

This approach is based on a refreshed definition of our purpose, what we seek to achieve and how we lead, work and behave. It will underpin, enable and support all our work as an effective regulator, led by our vision: Everyone receives safe, effective and compassionate care.

Our shared values of excellence, integrity, caring, and teamwork, together with clear behavioural expectations, set out how CQC colleagues need to work to achieve a set of commitments.

Our commitments

Our 4 long-term commitments set out why we exist and what impact we will have. We will align everything we do to deliver against our 4 commitments and embed our values and behaviours in the way we do our work. This includes recruitment, induction, individual performance management, talent management and leadership. We will ensure the public has access to up-to-date information on quality, provide a positive and consistent regulatory experience for providers, and collaborate with stakeholders to drive continuous improvement. These are our commitments:

To the public: To listen, act, inform and protect 

We listen to, learn from and inform the public. We take appropriate action to keep them safe and improve their care. This is to protect people’s rights, and enable safe, effective and compassionate care regardless of their background or circumstances.

To providers and systems of care: To help them improve and innovate 

We work with health and care providers and wider care systems to improve the quality and equity of care. We set clear, evidence-based expectations, and we identify and respond to risk early. We encourage innovation and improvement by building strong, trusted relationships and using data and insight.

To our people: To feel valued and do great work 

We invest in our people, tools and culture to create the conditions for everyone at CQC to be guided by our vision and values. This will build internal trust and external credibility. Our people will do their best work as they are well-led, they feel supported and that they belong.

To partners who share our purpose: To work together for better care 

We work with partners across government, Parliament, wider stakeholders, and communities, sharing insight, best practice and learning. This is to strengthen our regulation, accelerate innovation and build an effective, inclusive and resilient health and care system.

Our role involves

• Registering health and adult social care providers to carry on regulated activity.
• Assessing and inspecting services to check whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led and publishing judgements and ratings on the quality of care.
• Giving a meaningful and independent assessment of care in a local area, under the Health and Care Act 2022, and assessing newly introduced integrated care systems (ICSs) through a whole system partnership approach to manage health care in local areas.
• Providing independent assurance to the public of the quality of care in their area.
• Publishing judgements and ratings for the performance of local authorities in meeting their adult social care responsibilities under the Care Act 2014.
• Enforcing the regulations by holding providers to account and using our legal powers to take action to protect people where we identify poor care.
• Speaking independently by publishing national and regional commentary on the major quality issues in health and social care and encouraging improvement by highlighting good practice.
• Protecting the rights of people in more vulnerable circumstances, including those whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act.
• Listening to, acting on people’s experiences, and involving the public and people who receive care in our regulation.
• Using appropriate regulatory levers to drive improvement.

Immediate actions

Since the publication of the 2024 report by Dr Penny Dash, and with new leadership, we have already taken steps to address areas of immediate concern.

The priorities include some immediate actions – urgent work that will get us back to delivering effective regulation. 

Enabling new assessments 

We must increase the number of assessments we carry out each month so that the public and commissioners have a true picture of the quality of care.

We are implementing a range of initiatives and strategies to increase the volume of assessment activity and reduce the time required to complete assessments. We introduced a more streamlined approach to the existing process by discontinuing scoring at the evidence category level and only scoring and reporting at the quality statement level. This change was intended to improve efficiency for our staff.

We have also deployed interim technical solutions to enable us to complete the end-to-end assessment process through changes for providers with different types of services and locations, which need a location assessment plan.

These are interim approaches while we implement longer-term solutions.

We have focused efforts on assessments that had not progressed as quickly as they should have beyond the different stages of the assessment process. Some of these were unable to progress in the system due to a technical issue. This has been resolved, and work is underway to ensure that assessments can progress in a timely way.

We will also develop and implement a consistent and repeatable approach to assessment that enables our colleagues to deliver an end-to-end assessment journey, at the required standard and the necessary volume, ensuring outcomes are shared with the public and providers in a timely way.

LEAD INDICATOR: We will complete 9,000 assessments by the end of September 2026. These will be made up of assessments focusing on risk in services, aged ratings, and services that have not yet had an assessment.

Improvements to the backlog of information of concern cases and notifications

We must reduce the backlog of information of concern cases that have no recorded action or risk review, which are over 10 days old. Work is also needed to ensure processes for dealing with notifications are robust.

Our main focus is to eliminate the backlog of information of concern cases, implement process improvements, and review business processes for notifications.

Supporting actions:

• Using expert clinical resource to review ways of working to strengthen the end-to-end process.
• Implement improved operating procedures for handling information of concern cases and notifications. 

Our priority levels are:

Priority 1 (P1): We have reason to suspect people have experienced and are at continuing risk of significant abuse or neglect and the local authority (safeguarding team) are not aware.

Priority 2 (P2): We have reason to suspect people have experienced and may or may not be at continuing risk of significant abuse or neglect and the local authority or police are already aware.

Priority 3 (P3): People’s experiences indicate a breach of fundamental standards or a significant action, but there is no abuse or neglect.

LEAD INDICATOR(S):

• 95% of P1 cases to have a referral sent by National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) within 2 days.
• 95% of P1 cases to have a recorded action and risk review taken by Operational colleagues within 1 day of allocation from NCSC.
• 95% of P2 cases to have a recorded action or risk review within 10 working days, with a view to reaching 5 working days by the end of the financial year.
• 95% of P3 cases to have a recorded action or risk review within 10 working days, with a view to reaching 5 working days by the end of the financial year.

Registration

We must reduce the backlog of registration applications that are more than 10 weeks old.

We have taken a number of actions to reduce the backlog, including moving registration activity from the regulatory platform to Siebel CRM, and recruiting additional colleagues.

We are completing further work to improve guidance and ways of working and strengthen external information to improve the quality of applications, including through our website. These are interim measures while we implement longer term solutions to systems and ways of working.

LEAD INDICATOR: 80% of applications will have a notice of decision issued within 10 weeks of a valid application being received from Q3 2025/26. This is excluding applications deemed out of CQC’s control.

Out of Control applications are those where we have decided to refuse the application or impose conditions that are subject to representations or appeals. We therefore issue a Notice of Proposal first. It also includes applications that are termed Sales and Transfers as these are subject to external legal processes. Both mean they could exceed the 10-week service level commitment and that the timescales are outside our control.

These immediate actions are important, but we will also ensure that in the coming year we address foundational improvements across 5 key areas to ensure future success.

Foundational improvements

To ensure that we respond to the immediate need to rebuild our performance as a regulator, we are focusing on 5 areas that are fundamental to improving CQC for the benefit of people who use services as well as providers of health and care services. We have already completed work on one area – updating our purpose and values. While we have started to work on initiatives in the other 4 areas, this work is still in its early stages, and we are developing detailed plans and milestones. The following summary may therefore change during the year. 

Integration of operations and regulatory leadership

Our operational and regulatory leadership structure will be modified to reflect the recommendations from Professor Sir Mike Richards.

We will introduce a revised business structure by merging the Operations and Regulatory Leadership directorates under the leadership of 4 chief inspectors who will provide sector leadership and expertise. This will support the long-term sustainable delivery of CQC’s statutory duties and strategy. There will be a move to a single inspector role – moving away from the split roles of inspector and assessor. We will complete pilots, which will be evaluated to inform improvements to team and relationship management.

Supporting activity:

• Establishment of programme infrastructure and development of a plan to deliver the structural and role changes.
• Establishment of a single inspector role and transition assessors to become inspectors.
• Completion of a pilot to refocus the role of Operations Manager from integrated teams into sector teams.
• Completion of a pilot to improve relationships with providers through better engagement – and supporting providers to improve by introducing provider oversight leads.
• Engagement with colleagues to inform the future structure.

Assessment approach

Learning from the reviews of the single assessment framework by Professor Sir Mike Richards, Dr Penny Dash and the Care Provider Alliance (chaired by Professor Vic Rayner), we will deliver a revised policy and methodology for assessment.

This will:

• explain the regulatory model.
• revise the content of the assessment framework and how we will use it flexibly.
• explain the frequency of assessment, how we form judgements and ratings.
• develop scenarios for initial testing.
• include an equality impact assessment and sector and service-specific guidance.

Supporting activity:

• development of a plan for the long-term changes.
• engagement with providers, including through roadshows.
• undertaking testing, piloting and evaluation of the new approach to assessments.
• consultation on the revised assessment framework.
• development of a new provider handbook.

Technology and IT systems

The focus of our activities this year is to set ourselves up for success and lead the re-design and re-build of our regulatory platform and provider portal in line with the recommendations of the report from Peter Gill and our agreed roadmap. Specifically:

• The Technology, Data and Insight directorate will support immediate organisational priorities by implementing tactical solutions where possible. These solutions will specifically be focused on enabling more assessments and building improved systems indicators to enable more meaningful and objective performance measurement.
• Complete preparatory work regarding our approach to engagement, change management, business process mapping, adopting best practice and ensuring that adherence to relevant standards, including privacy by design and accessibility is complete. Any changes to ways of working will be socialised, understood and monitored to support continuous improvement.
• Commence co-design and re-build activity of our future regulatory platform in line with recommendations and our agreed roadmap.

Supporting actions:

• Develop and agree a well-socialised and aligned plan to deliver digital systems that are fit for purpose and aligned to our other foundational improvements to ensure our change programme is well-managed.
• Deliver the structures needed to support the end-to-end flow of data across all our systems.
• Review and update the Technology, Data and Insight operational processes and governance frameworks to introduce best practice standards.
• Profile the capability and capacity needed to deliver and manage our long-term technology and data infrastructure.
• Upgrade the regulatory platform environment to enable future changes to be implemented in a more sustainable and uniform way.
• Safely decommission our legacy technology to reduce risk and maximise value for money.

Data, ratings and the register

We need to make improvements to the collection, analysis and publication of data to ensure that regulatory risks and insights for improvement are identified, and to ensure that reporting is accurate, timely, and insightful. Data and Insight and Performance colleagues will address these issues, focusing on data technology, categorisation, and improving daily data use across the organisation. Importantly, we need to embed a data and insight-led culture across the organisation, linking to our purpose and values.

Supporting activity:

• Undertake a review of our data taxonomy and action any agreed changes to ensure clarity in reporting, ratings and to maximise the accuracy of our register.
• Respond and action recommendations in external reviews (Dr Penny Dash, Professor Sir Mike Richards, and Peter Gill) regarding the prioritisation of our use of data and embedding a data-led culture.
• Implement safety measures regarding data quality, while improving the quality and management of our data.
• Develop a core ‘data model’ to drive our regulatory platform and co-design and rebuilding work, and to maximise the value of our data to ensure the data requirements of both CQC and partners drive our system development.
• Develop and agree a well-socialised plan to deliver data provision that is fit for purpose and aligned to our other foundational improvements to ensure our change programme is well-managed.
• Widely engage with internal and external health and care partners, with a focus on agreeing an externally focused ‘data strategy’ that supports our role in improvement in health and care.
• Review our own internal use of artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure we are maximising opportunities and added value.
• Develop and formalise our role as a regulator in supporting the appropriate, safe and effective use of AI by health and care providers.
• Strengthen our approach to information governance and develop a planned approach to improvement in this area.

Part 2: Wider context for 2025/2026

We need to remain flexible and adaptable to changes as well as focus on our regulatory and statutory obligations to be successful in our role. This is in addition to our relationships and work with the Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations Programme (MNSI), the National Guardian’s Office and Healthwatch England.

This business plan is prepared based on our known and anticipated work in the year ahead. Any additional and unanticipated extra work would need to be discussed, and resource agreed, without compromising our key priorities set out here.

The key areas of focus in support of our wider context are referenced in Appendix B.

Statutory reporting requirements

We have a number of statutory reporting requirements from various legislation. Fulfilling statutory obligations is a core function of being a regulator, including publication of the following annual reports:

• The state of health care and adult social care in England
• Monitoring the Mental Health Act
• Monitoring the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards
• IR(ME)R annual report (Ionising Radiation (Medical Exposure) Regulations 2017)
• The safer management of controlled drugs annual update (Controlled Drugs (Supervision of Management and Use) Regulations 2013)
• National preventive mechanism
• Equality objectives
• CQC annual report and accounts
• Prescribed persons report

Independent voice

Our independent voice enables us to speak about major issues across health and social care that are affecting people’s experiences and outcomes, as well as to encourage and drive improvement in the sector. This year, we will use our independent voice to fulfil statutory duties to report annually on the State of Care in England, as well as our monitoring of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS), and through the Mental Health Act, Ionising Radiation Regulations and Controlled Drugs Regulations.

Our independent voice, including our annual State of Care report, will focus on our strategic ambitions, foundational improvements, and prioritised activity. This includes insights from the Adult Community Mental Health Programme, local authority assessments, Independent Care (Education) and Treatment Review panels, the Systems Pathway Pressures programme, and our core operational activity. We will also report on people’s experiences through the publication of the NHS Patient Survey results. This year, our independent voice will cover themes including pressures and challenges experienced across the health and social care systems; inequity in experience and outcomes for people who use services; and examples of improvement and innovation. Throughout our research, insights and independent voice, we will talk about the findings in the context of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan.

Our independent voice also gives us an opportunity to rebuild organisational trust and demonstrate our value, unique insight and the impact CQC can have on creating positive change in the sector. The need for improvements at CQC means that the depth of our independent voice is currently more limited than we would aspire to. As we make progress on rebuilding our organisation, delivering more assessments and improving our technology and data, we are aiming to also enhance the quality of our independent voice output as those changes are embedded. 

Governance and Assurance

Recognising the challenges we have faced in recent years, we will be undertaking a governance review to evaluate our current governance framework, committee structures and decision-making forums to ensure we are enabling effective decision making. We will also revise our risk management and assurance approach including the creation of a new Executive risk committee and a board assurance framework.

Alongside this, we will continue to embed UK Government Functional Standards to drive coherence, consistency and continuous improvement, to support the enduring principles and requirements set out in HM Treasury’s Managing public money.

Strategy

Our ambitions are clear, to deliver on our strategy and strategic themes, which include:

• People and communities
• Smarter regulation
• Safety through learning
• Accelerating improvement

And our core ambitions of:

• Assessing local systems
• Tackling inequalities in health and social care

Our work will continue to progress in these areas, while recognising the need to review and refresh our strategic ambitions. This will be informed by the immediate actions and foundational improvements described in this plan, our research programme and changes in the health and care landscape and beyond. It will build on the development of our purpose and values plus a shared understanding of the role of a modern regulator to deliver our core purpose. 

We welcome the vision set out in the government’s 10-Year Health Plan for England, and the central role it gives CQC in providing consistent and co-ordinated regulation across health and care. The Plan, which follows Lord Darzi’s independent review of the NHS in England, sets a clear aim for us to be the most effective, modern and patient-orientated regulator in the world. Meeting this aim will mean we need to evolve as the health and care system does. We will need to adapt how we work, be responsive to new models of care and ensure our regulatory decisions make best use of emerging data sources across the system. Ensuring we evolve in this way will help us continue to deliver on our core purpose and give the public a clear view of quality and safety. The National Quality Board will provide system leadership to deliver the ambitions of the 10-year health plan, and we will continue to support the Board and the work it delivers.

In September 2024, we committed to being an anti-racist organisation. This involves how we regulate to promote equity, reduce health inequalities and improve outcomes for people, and being anti-racist in our internal work, importantly for our workforce. We will implement our strategic and policy approach to anti-racism, including phases for developing the work and the overall roles of the Board. The phases cover how we can address structural, institutional and inter-personal racism in health and care through regulation, and within the organisation.

The Mental Health Bill, which will modernise the Mental Health Act 1983, is likely to have an impact on CQC’s assessment and safeguarding functions and the delivery of Independent Care (Education) and Treatment Review panels.

We will work with the Casey Commission on the role of regulation in the reform of social care in England, drawing on the findings of our regulation of social care providers, our assessment outcomes of the implementation local authority duties under the Care Act 2014, our market oversight of provider and workforce issues, and the evidence we have published on the need for improvement of people’s care experience.

We support the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) in the following actions that will affect us in the year ahead:

• DHSC has agreed to update our regulations to make it a legal requirement for mental health providers to notify us when they use specified restrictive interventions. This requirement will enhance the safety of people using registered mental health services and enable us to respond more promptly. The requirement is dependent on improvements to our provider portal, which are underway, and the change to our regulations being approved by Parliament.
• DHSC will remove the sports and temporary events exemption in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, which will allow us to regulate provision of medical care at temporary sporting and cultural events by removing the relevant exemption. This change was a recommendation of the Manchester Arena Inquiry. DHSC is continuing to draft policy and finalise the timeline, with the aim for the statutory instrument to be laid in early 2026. In September 2026, healthcare providers of services included in the regulated activity will be able to register with us. The main initial implication of this change, from September 2026, will be increased demand on our registration activity.
• DHSC has indicated it intends to consult on policy and regulations to bring into scope the regulation of higher risk non-surgical cosmetic procedures. This follows an earlier consultation on the regulation of these procedures, including licensing arrangements by local authorities. The intention is that higher risk cosmetic procedures may only be carried out by healthcare professionals, and will fall under our regulatory remit, and provision will be made for sanctions where these procedures are carried out by non-healthcare professionals. We will need to operationalise the regulations, once enacted. The number of providers affected is unclear at this stage, but this may lead to an increase in registration of providers.

The Health and Care Act 2022 gave us new responsibilities to assess whether ICSs are meeting the needs of their local populations. The methodology we will use to carry out our ICS assessments is subject to government approval under the Health and Care Act 2022.

As a result of the recent government announcement that NHS England will be brought back under the DHSC, along with reductions planned for integrated care boards (ICBs), DHSC has withdrawn its request for a proposal from us on the future of ICS assessment activity. This work will pause for at least 6 months. We will continue to engage with DHSC during this period and review plans along with the new government reforms.

Finally, we have committed to work under service level agreements based on our advice and assistance powers. On behalf of the Home Office, we continue to provide an independent assessment regime for safehouse and outreach services for survivors of modern slavery while their status is being considered under the National Referral Mechanism. This work covers 12 providers and their locations across England and Wales, and the Memorandum of Understanding is expected to be extended until 2027.

On behalf of the Gambling Commission and GambleAware, we will also undertake an independent baseline assessment of the provision of services for people affected by gambling harm. The National Gambling Treatment Service is a network of 14 providers. This assessment will be undertaken between April 2025 and March 2026 using an assessment framework based on our framework and recent NICE guidelines. 

Appendix A: Immediate action measures 

Enabling new assessments target

Total volume of assessments target by September 2026: 

• 9,000 assessments
• Adult Social Care: 5,013 assessments
• Secondary Care: 887 assessments
• Primary Care and Community: 1,194 assessments
• Oral Health: 1,500 assessments
• Mental Health: 726 assessments

Target time to complete assessments: 

• Adult Social Care, Primary and Community Care, Oral Health and Health and Justice: 50 working days or fewer
• Mental Health and Secondary Specialist Care: 85 working days or fewer

Registration backlog target for 2025/26

• The volume of registration applications over 10 weeks old and incomplete: 0 by year-end
• The percentage of registration applications over 10 weeks old and incomplete: 0% by year end
• The volume of registration applications completed: Track for information
• The percentage of registration applications that have been rejected: Track for information
• The volume of registration applications received: Track for information

Information of concern (IOC) cases backlog target for 2025/26

• Percentage of information of concern (IOC) cases initially triaged as Priority 1 with a referral sent within 2 days: 95%
• Percentage of information of concern (IOC) Priority 1 cases with an action taken within 1 day of referral: 95%
• Percentage of information of concern (IOC) Priority 2 cases with an action taken within 10 days (reducing to 5 days in 2026/27): 95%
• Percentage of information of concern (IOC) Priority 3 cases with an action taken within 10 days (reducing to 5 days in 2026/27): 95%

Appendix B: Wider business performance measures  

Assessments target

• Age of assessments less than 5 years old: Increase on 69.6%
• Total quality statements assessed in completed assessments: Track for information

Engagement target for 2025/26

• Percentage of stakeholders who have positive sentiment toward ‘I have a good understanding of CQC's regulatory approach’: 75%
• Percentage of stakeholders who have positive sentiment towards ‘I believe the changes CQC is making will improve how it regulates’: 62%
• Customer satisfaction with CQC's website and ‘Give feedback on care’ service: 85%

Finance target for 2025/26

• Percentage capital spend variance to budget: Between and inclusive of -1% to 1%
• Percentage revenue spend variance to budget - total: Between and inclusive of -1% to 1%

Health and safety target for 2025/26

• The number of health and safety incidents, accidents and near misses (incl. verbal/physical abuse): Track for information

Information access target for 2025/26

• Percentage Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs) answered to standard within 20 working days: 95%
• Percentage Subject Access Requests (SARs) answered to standard within statutory deadline: 95%

Mental Health Act Operations target for 2025/26

• Total volume of Mental Health Act (MHA) complaints follow-up actions: Equal or less than 1,622 per month
• Percentage of Second Opinion Appointed Doctor (SOAD) appointed within timeframe: 70%
• Percentage Section 61 reports scrutinised within 14 days: 97%
• The number of second opinions awaiting an appointment: Equal or less than 11,391
• The number of Mental Health Act Operations (MHAO) monitoring visits undertaken: 62 per month
• Number of Mental Health Act Operations (MHAO) Independent Care and Treatment reviews (ICETR) undertaken: 6 per month

Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations target for 2025/26

Maternity and Newborn Safety Investigations (MNSI):

• to contact trusts within 2 days: 90%
• to contact families within 5 days: 90%
• complete investigations within 6 months: 60%
• complete investigations within 6 months without exceptions/on holds: 60% end September 2025, 70% end January 2026, 80% end March 2026

National Customer Service Centre (NCSC) target for 2025/26

• Percentage of NCSC general enquiries line calls answered: 80%
• Percentage of NCSC registration line calls answered: 80%
• Percentage of NCSC mental health line calls answered: 90%
• Percentage of NCSC safeguarding line calls answered 90%

National Operations target for 2025/26

• Ionising Radiation Medical Exposure Regulations (IR(ME)R) inspection volumes: 120
• Multi-agency activity volumes (regulatory and non-regulatory): Children's team: 70
• Multi-agency activity volumes (regulatory and non-regulatory): Health & Justice team: 86
• Multi-agency activity volumes (non-regulatory): Safehouses team: 38
• Multi-agency activity volumes (non-regulatory): Defence Medical Services team: 64
• Medicines Optimisation regulatory activity volumes: 800

People target for 2025/26

• Percentage of staff turnover: Less than 10%
• Percentage of staff vacancies: Less than 5%
• Percentage of staff sickness: Less than 5%
• Percentage of staff from an ethnic minority background: Equal or greater than 17.9%
• Percentage of staff with a disability: Equal or greater than 18.4%

Local authority assessments target for 2025/26

• Local authority assessments site visits: 153 (100%) by December 2025
• Local authority assessments reports published: 153 (100%) by March 2026

Technology, Data and Insight target for 2025/26

• Availability of CQC 'business critical' systems: 99.8%
• Customer satisfaction with CQC's website and give feedback on care service: 85%

Appendix C: Budget

Budget 2025-26