CQC Announces Delays to New Adult Care Assessments
                     CQC Announces Delays to 
New Adult Care 
Assessments
On the 21st of December, the CQC released ‘Our revised plan and approach for transformation
,’ a news post that details changes to the New Assessment Approach and delays in the rollout of 
new Adult Care Assessments. ClouDoc brings you the key points of this latest CQC press release 
and lets you know how these changes might affect your care business this year.
Changes to Inspections
 In November 2022, the CQC released an article on how their plans would affect their 
day-to-day operational practices. These changes will significantly affect their 
inspection processes and the structure of their operational teams.
 A dedicated director will supersede the deputy chief inspectors who currently head up 
CQC’s operational teams. An officer will now administer meaning teams in a more 
specialised role. The CQC hopes this will provide more objective oversight and 
effective management of their inspectors.
 The structure of operational teams is also set to change significantly. The current 
specialist sector teams, split across adult social care, primary medical services, and 
hospitals, will be combined into a single operations group, allowing for greater 
integration of standards, practices, and lessons learned throughout the CQC’s 
activities in these diverse sectors.
Changes to Inspections
 While specialist teams are being consolidated to facilitate consistency, 
communication, and mutual improvement, the CQC will divide the operations group 
geographically to establish local teams and provide more accurate and tailored 
inspections suited to the strengths and needs identified in each local area. This will 
allow the CQC to respond more to systemic shortcomings in an area or region’s care 
provision and gain a more granular and accurate view of care in local areas.
 These local teams will now be administered within four regional ‘networks’; Northern 
England, Midlands, London and East of England, and South England, and will comprise 
several roles:
 Assessors (Establish an ongoing overview of local care activities, using evidence both 
on- and off-site)
 Assessors (Establish an ongoing overview of local care activities, using evidence both 
on- and off-site)
Changes to Inspections
 Regulatory co-ordinators (Lead engagement with local providers and community 
stakeholders)
 Regulatory officers (Support and administrative duties such as inspection planning)
 Local team leaders and Regional Network directors can scale and configure these 
teams depending on the service types, infrastructure/ pre-existing assets, and unique 
challenges or issues in each local area. The CQC hopes this will result in a more 
inclusive, multifaceted way of assessing care services, more cognizant of local area 
needs.
A Last-Minute Change of Plans
 Although the CQC intended to introduce the new assessment approach this month, 
January 2023, they have now stated that this will be pushed back. They have provided 
the open-ended estimate that this will be completed ‘later in 2023.’ To ensure that 
their new systems and changing professional relationships have no adverse effect on 
partner agencies, care recipients, and the conduction of provider inspections, the CQC 
will be introducing their changes gradually, in stages.
 The CQC’s new online portal will be the most noticeable change for most care 
providers. Now planned for a first-wave release in the summer of 2023, this will allow 
providers to submit statutory notifications, make changes to their registration, and 
perform other functions more efficiently and with less impact on the CQC’s time and 
resources.
Strengthening Stakeholder 
Partnerships
 One reason for the delays in the CQC’s update is to take additional ‘time to work in 
partnership with stakeholders.’ Like the care businesses they regulate, the CQC would 
be ineffectual alone. By granting their stakeholders and partners additional time to 
provide input and feedback on new and changing systems, they can ensure that the 
other agencies they rely on to regulate the care sector are prepared and able to 
integrate the latest best practices into their work.
 As such, when a trial run of some of the proposed systemic changes commenced in 
early 2022 and found the changes had an adverse effect on the affected assessment 
teams, this gave the CQC incentive to pause and reassess the pace of implementation 
to consider their partners and care providers better.
Strengthening Stakeholder 
Partnerships
 The review, which led to the development of the new approach, identified the 
importance of ensuring all buyers, providers, and stakeholders in health & social care 
are kept on the same page as a critical priority. Since the new regulatory approach so 
strongly emphasises the integration of professionals from different care and 
healthcare sectors, it is especially important that the CQC’s new systems and 
processes facilitate effective communication and information-sharing across the 
organisation.
 To hinder the existing relationships and partnerships which underpin the CQC’s 
regulatory activities would be to beleaguers operations in a caring environment the 
CQC itself has described as ‘gridlocked.’ As such, the CQC must be confident in its 
new approach before it is fully implemented. In the meantime, care providers can only 
wait for further communication and continue strengthening their knowledge, 
operational practices, and supporting documents, such as policies and statements of 
purpose, to ensure they are compliant and ready to work alongside the CQC in the 
coming months.
Here at ClouDoc, we can provide your business with high-quality 
policies and other documents designed to keep your business on track 
and CQC-compliant. Our Care Home Policies are comprehensive and 
up-to-date, and our online document management system allows you 
to edit and download your policies in popular file formats, including 
.doc and .pdf. Find out how ClouDoc can take the worry out of 
maintaining a great suite of operational documents by calling the 
team today at 0330 808 0050! 
THANK YOU