Confidence in the future direction of the CQC

Despite visible green shoots, the CQC still has a long way to go to rebuild its credibility and regain the sector’s confidence.

There are clear signs of progress. As the findings throughout this report show, some leaders report improvements in inspection quality, more stable relationships with local teams, better informal engagement and a much-needed focus on rebuilding sector expertise.

But these positive experiences remain too isolated. Across many of the measures examined in this report, leaders report little improvement or further deterioration. Concerns persist about inspector expertise, slow reporting, inconsistent judgments, poor understanding of local context, regulatory burden and a punitive culture.

Transformation of the scale required inevitably takes time. We therefore also looked beyond leaders’ experiences over the past year to ask if they nevertheless believe the CQC is moving in the right direction.

The findings were concerning. Just two in ten (21 per cent) believed the CQC is making the changes to improve its performance longer term, compared with 27 per cent who did not. A further 37 per cent were neutral, while 16 per cent were not sure.

Free-text responses reinforce a central theme running through this report: there is a gap between support for changes to key policies and national frameworks and confidence in the CQC’s capability to deliver it. Leaders welcomed elements of the changes being pursued, but some questioned whether commitments made nationally were yet being reflected in their experience of regulation. One chair of a mental health trust felt that ‘promises are not being implemented or reflected in practice.’