When we’ll start using our new regulatory approach for you.

We are rolling out our new regulatory approach by area.

These are the start dates we are planning up to March 2024. We will contact providers with details of how to prepare before we start the new assessments in your area.

At this stage, our new assessment approach will not apply to services that we do not rate (for example, dental providers). Although we will start new assessments by region, NHS trust well-led assessments in all areas will begin from 6 February 2024.

From 21 November 2023 we will start using our new single assessment framework in our South region.

Between 21 November and 4 December 2023 we will undertake a small number of planned assessments with 14 early adopter providers, whilst continuing to respond to risk. We will then expand our new assessment approach to all providers based on a risk-informed schedule.

From 5 December 2023 we will be using our new regulatory approach with all providers in our South region and with providers in the Bedford, Luton and Milton Keynes integrated care system area (ICS).

From 8 January 2024 we will start using our new single assessment framework in our London and East of England region.

From 23 January 2024 we will start using our new regulatory approach with a small number of providers in our North and Midlands regions.

From 6 February 2024 we will start using our new regulatory approach with all providers in our North and Midlands regions and will include NHS well-led assessments.

We will contact providers directly in each area, ahead of their rollout date with more information.

Read more on how we’re rolling out our new approach

We know how important it is for us to provide the right guidance that helps providers understand our new regulatory approach, so you can be ready for when our new assessments start.

New Guidance

We’ve recently published new guidance on our website;

• How we will roll out our new assessments: https://www.cqc.org.uk/assessment/how-we-will-roll-out-our-new-assessments
• How we will calculate the first scores: https://www.cqc.org.uk/assessing-quality-and-performance/how-we-reach-rating/how-we-will-calculate-first-scores
• How we gather evidence: https://www.cqc.org.uk/assessment/quality-performance/gather-evidence
• Display your ratings: posters: https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-providers/ratings/display-your-ratings-posters

We’ve also updated information on our website this week to include a list of all the evidence categories we’ll use when assessing individual quality statements for different types of services – https://www.cqc.org.uk/assessment/evidence-categories/evidence-categories-sector-groups

Subscribe to our new WhatsApp channel

We now have a WhatsApp channel where we will be sharing the latest updates on our new regulatory approach.

Please note that as WhatsApp Channels may not be available to all users yet we won’t be posting content that hasn’t already been shared by other means.