From Monday 2nd December the Care Quality Commission will introduce some important new changes to their quality assessments of providers.
What is Changing?
Following feedback, the CQC has recognised that the way they currently do assessments takes too long, and that the scoring model is too complex. Therefore, from 2nd Dec they will stop scoring and reporting at evidence category level for provider assessments. That means they will start reporting and scoring at quality statement level.
As a reminder, the CQC defines quality statements as follows:
“Quality statements are the commitments that providers, commissioners and system leaders should live up to. Expressed as ‘we statements’, they show what is needed to deliver high-quality, person-centred care”.
The 34 quality statements can be found at Appendix 1 here.
(The evidence categories that they are stopping scoring and reporting of were the six mentioned in this document).
Their published evidence categories will still be used in order to guide which areas they assess for each provider.
What Does This Mean for Me?
You’ll notice in draft reports for provider assessments published after 2nd December that there are no scores at evidence category level, and instead there will be scores for quality statements. In addition, because the CQC are improving some of their in-house tech and systems, you may notice that the CQC can carry out assessments more quickly.
What Can I Expect in 2025?
Further significant changes are coming in 2025, but not before they have undertaken a consultation on them, engaging providers and their patients over the next 3 months:
• New clearer descriptions of what they look for at each level of quality under each of their 4 ratings
• New handbook for providers
• New ways to reach an accurate rating based on a selected number of quality statements
• They will stop using existing ratings to produce new scores
• Professional judgement will be used and developed more when rating services.
Users of our FPM Core compliance system can access a GP Practice Gap Analysis Template to help you evidence how you meet requirements, as part of the CQC Inspection Toolkit?
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