Recommended areas of CQC focus

Strengthen inspector expertise and quality assurance

The CQC should rebuild specialist expertise within inspection teams and provide thorough training for staff as the new sector-specific frameworks are rolled out. It should also ensure reports and ratings are reviewed by staff with appropriate seniority and relevant sector expertise before publication, alongside stronger processes for resolving factual inaccuracies.

Set clear standards for timely reporting

The CQC should make report turnaround a core measure of its recovery, setting a clear publication standard and reporting transparently against it.

Rebuild continuity in local relationships

The CQC should ensure trusts have clear, consistent local points of contact who possess detailed knowledge of the organisation and wider system. Greater local relationship continuity, alongside stronger informal engagement between inspections, would support a better understanding of local pressures, emerging risks and improvement activity underway.

Make regulation work across organisational boundaries

The return to sector-specific frameworks is welcome and should be implemented in a way that does not increase regulatory siloes. The CQC should set out how its regulatory approach will account for system working, group models, provider collaboratives, integrated teams, shared governance and pathways spanning organisational boundaries.

Target regulation where it adds greatest value

The CQC should target activity where it can add most value, including identifying risks early, providing meaningful assurance or accelerating improvement. It should reduce low-value information requests and avoid duplicating assurance or intervention, while coordinating more effectively with NHSE and ICBs, particularly where improvement action is already underway.

Establish a more improvement-focused inspection culture

The CQC should ensure a constructive and professional inspection culture is the norm across all inspection teams. Independent challenge should be combined with improvement focused insight, recognition of effective practice and opportunities to spread learning across the NHS.