CQC’s impact on the quality of care: An assessment of CQC's contribution, and suggestions for improvement

This report was commissioned by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as part of the evaluation of CQC’s five-year strategy ‘Shaping the Future’, published in May 2016. It aims to provide an in-depth assessment of the relationship between CQC’s regulatory approach, and improvement in quality of health and social care. This includes looking at how CQC works with provider organisations and other system partners involved in health and social care. The report builds on existing evidence about CQC’s impact on quality, and takes this one-step further, by recognising more explicitly how CQC’s contribution interacts with other influencers on quality.
The report seeks to support CQC in delivering its purpose by identifying areas where it can improve its approach. It does this by elucidating theories of change and associated evidence, encapsulated in simple diagrams, which CQC can use as the basis for redesigning its activities and for organisational and staff development. Crucially, these theories also highlight external conditions which need to be in place for CQC to have an impact. Some of these conditions relate to provider organisations and others to the wider health and care system. They suggest a challenging agenda for CQC to engage more productively with providers and system stakeholders to achieve on-going quality improvement, supported by learning from further research and evaluation.