Nottinghamshire Healthcare has registered as fully compliant with the Care Quality Commission’s regulatory framework. The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Its aim is to make sure better care is provided for everyone, whether that’s in hospital, in care homes, in people's own homes, or elsewhere.
CQC regulates health and adult social care services, whether provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. It also seeks to protect the interests of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act.
The regulation of health and adult social care is changing. Subject to legislation, all health and adult social care providers who provide regulated activities will be required by law to be registered with the Care Quality Commission. The new registration system comes into force on 1 April 2010 for NHS trusts (including primary care trusts as providers) and on 1 October 2010 for adult social care and independent healthcare providers (registration under the Care Standards Act 2000 continues until 30 September 2010).
The Health and Social Care Act 2008 introduced a new, single registration system that applies to both health and adult social care.
The new regulations are set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2009 and the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009, and are currently being laid before Parliament. When the regulations come into force, they will replace:
· National Minimum Standards;
· Standards for Better Health.
Mike Cooke is Chief Executive of the Trust: “I am delighted that we have enough evidence to register as fully compliant with the CQC. Regulations are an important framework to ensure patient safety and a good patient experience. Collecting the evidence to demonstrate that we are compliant has been a huge piece of work but this reassures the people that use our services that they are receiving high quality, effective and timely care. We welcome the validation of this evidence when we hear from the CQC in due course.”
As part of the new registration system, the CQC has also produced a Quality Risk Profile (QRP) for each NHS Trust, which will be used to assess whether Trusts comply with regulatory standards and whether their registration application will be approved. Nottinghamshire Healthcare has published its QRP and a copy of this document is available to download.
