The Care Quality Commission is an organisation that monitors, inspects and regulates the companies and locations that carry out health-care services across the UK. Their responsibility is to ensure these services offered reach a set of standards – standards that look into the level of care, safety, hygiene and performance offered.

According to the CQC, they will do inspections of relevant locations or services once every 3 years. This ensures that providers in the healthcare industry are regularly re-assessed and held to the standards.  When undergoing this inspection, the inspection team will cover their main 5 questions (see below for more detail on this) and they will rate the services / or environment on a four-point scale: Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement or Inadequate.

During the inspection the Care Quality Commission may also gather relevant information in the following ways:  

• Speak with clients or members of the public who use the services
• Hold a focus group to listen to opinions on the services
• Hold focus groups with members of staff
• Conduct drop-in sessions with members of staff where they can freely come in and speak
• Interview senior staff members, such as directors
• Ensure and test all systems are properly in place

If any part of the inspection doesn’t live up to standards, and if any part of the inspection doesn’t fall within the acceptable limit, the CQC can carry out further visits to the establishment / company / location to ensure these points are improved upon.

What is the Purpose of the CQC?

The primary role of the CQC is to ensure that companies operating within the health and social care industry are offering the right kind of care. They’re holding companies up to high standards and ensuring people associating with these companies, or people receiving treatment from them are receiving safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care.

The CQC can also recommend areas of improvement too – ensuring that companies are always striving to better themselves and their facilities / services.

Here are some aspects of what the Care Quality Commission do on a wider level:

• Monitor, inspect and rate services
• Register care providers
• Provide an independent rating and feedback system
• Take action to offer protection of patients (if needed)
• Listen to the experiences of patients and look for ways to improve experiences.
• Take feedback from the general public in regards to health and social care
• Work with other organisations and public groups

Who is Regulated Under the CQC Guidelines?

The CQC regulate, monitor and assess all companies working within the health and social care industry. This can include:

• Hospitals
• GPs and Doctors
• Care Homes
• Criminal justice system
• Child protection

What Are the CQC Values?

The CQC are proud to work within a core set of values, and all their work revolves around these values. These values can be found on their website, and we’ve put them below. It gives you a good idea of the kind of companies they look for and what they strive to improve within health and social care.

• Excellence – being a high-performing organisation
• Caring – treating everyone with dignity and respect
• Integrity – doing the right thing
• Teamwork – learning from each other to be the best we can

The 5 Key Questions the CQC ask…

The 5 questions used by the Care Quality Commission when assessing the care offered by establishments / companies – are listed below. We’ve copied these straight from their website, so you can understand exactly how they view each individual aspect. These 5 key questions help the CQC identify areas that need improving, and help them ensure whether or not a service is safe or not.

These 5 questions also ensure the basis foundation of standards stay the same for each and every place / company that is assessed.

1. Are they safe? You are protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

2. Are they effective? Your care, treatment and support achieves good outcomes, helps you to maintain quality of life and is based on the best available evidence.

3. Are they caring? Staff involved and treat you with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.

4. Are they Responsive to people’s needs? Services are organised so that they meet your needs.

5. Are they well-led? The leadership, management and governance of the organisation to make sure it’s providing high-quality care that’s based around your individual needs, that it encourages learning and innovation, and that it promotes an open and fair culture.

Regional Services work with many companies and locations that need to adhere to the CQC guidelines, and thus, when hiring us to clean your establishment, you can sure we clean to the highest possible standards.

We’re very familiar with the CQC guidelines for hygiene and cleanliness, so we can work with you if you need to keep your place of work in-fitting with the guidelines mentioned above. This is particularly true for our work in the Medical and Dental sector.

Get a quote from us today.