News from the Care Quality Commission: July 2025

The 10 Year Health Plan for England: Our response

Sir Julian Harley, our Chief Executive, has spoken following the publication of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan for England.

The government has designed the plan to bring the NHS closer to home. Neighbourhood health services will be rolled out across the country, bringing diagnostics, mental health, post-op, rehab and nursing to people’s doorsteps.

The plan also sets out how regulation can give patients confidence that they will receive high-quality care. It sets out 3 reasons why independent regulation is important:

the consequences of care failings often cannot be remedied after-the-fact
the interests of managers, clinicians and patients are not always aligned; and
patient views need expert representation.

Commenting on the plan, Sir Julian said:

“We welcome this ambitious, future-focused plan for a world-class NHS that truly delivers for patients and the public. And we stand ready to play a central role in its delivery – the Plan sets out how our role will be further strengthened to make us ‘the most effective, modern and patient oriented healthcare regulator in the world’.”

Join us! Work for CQC

CQC staff have a wide range of skills and work across many disciplines.

Find out about roles within CQC, Healthwatch England, MNSI and the Office of the National Guardian.

Current vacancies include:

Second Opinion Appointed Doctor
Legal Manager (Civil Litigation)
Internal Communications and Engagement Lead

Benefits include generous leave entitlement, NHS or Nest pension schemes and a wide range of employee discounts.

Most roles offer flexible locations with the choice to be home-based. See the individual job listings for more information.

Browse our current vacancies
Working at CQC

Our update on the safer management of controlled drugs

Earlier this month we published our annual update on the safer management and use of controlled drugs.

The report shares important insight on the use of controlled drugs in health care and adult social care services.

The annual update draws on prescribing data, feedback from controlled drug local intelligence networks, and our wider inspection and regulatory work. The report will help people working with controlled drugs to strengthen the arrangements for their safe management and use.

Accessible information standard updated

NHS England’s accessible information standard describes how NHS and adult social care services should identify, record, flag, share, meet and review people’s information and communication needs.

The standard has been updated to introduce a new step – reviewing needs. This is to check how organisations make sure people’s information and communication needs are kept up to date in their records and systems.

It also introduces a new self-assessment framework, developed with feedback from pilot sites to help organisations monitor compliance and develop targeted improvement plans.

The refreshed standard reinforces obligations under the Equality Act 2010 while making implementation more practical for organisations of all sizes.

As part of our regulation, we look at how well services meet the standard under the responsive key question, as part of the quality statement on providing information.

Looking at the quality of care in Defence Medical Services

We’ve published our latest annual report looking at our independent inspections of Defence Medical Services (DMS).

The Defence Medical Services provide medical care for members of HM Armed Forces. We inspect defence medical treatment facilities to ensure that armed forces personnel and their families have access to the same high-quality care as the rest of society. Our annual reports highlight the key findings from inspections.

During 2024/25 – Year 8 of this programme – we carried out 34 comprehensive inspections, comprising:

20 medical centres (including primary care rehabilitation facilities with expertise input from DMS physiotherapy and exercise rehabilitation specialist advisors)
14 dental centres.

We also carried out 14 follow-up inspections to ensure that services have resolved the concerns we found on initial inspections.

Annual report and accounts published

Our Annual report and accounts look at our progress and performance during the financial year 2023/24.

The first part of the report looks at the work that we’ve done, progress towards our objectives and targets, and our impact as a regulator.

The report also gives an overview of the funding we receive, where our expenditure is incurred and how we aim to demonstrate value for money.

New local authority assessments published

We publish reports that look at how local authorities are meeting their responsibilities to make sure people have access to adult social care and support.

Recent reports look at:

Each report looks at 9 areas spread across 4 themes to check how well each authority is meeting its responsibilities. Areas are given a score out of 1 to 4. A score of 1 is given when evidence shows significant shortfalls for this area, and 4 when evidence shows an exceptional standard is being met.

Local authority assessment reports