Care Quality Commission speaks out on safety in health and social care

Abstract

If organisations fail to make improvements to their services, a full range of enforcement powers is available to the CQC; these include the power to prosecute providers where serious breaches of basic standards have happened. In the past two years, the CQC has increased the amount of regulatory action it has taken across all sectors. In 2012-13, 1200 warning notices were issued; this increased to1588 in 2013/14 (CQC, 2014). The CQC’s responsibility is to ensure that health and social care services are providing people with safe, compassionate, high-quality care, as well as encouraging services to improve. It aims to be fair and robust in its activities, as well as being consistent in its expertled judgments. The CQC undertakes a tough approach to inspecting care services and that is absolutely right; its role is to check if health and social care providers—for eeping people safe from harm is the most important aspect of the role of the healthcare assistant and assistant practitioner (HCA and AP). However, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) (2014) is of the opinion, in a recent analysis of health and adult social care in England, that there are a number of unacceptable deficiencies in care provision.