Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will instruct the Care Quality Commission to make well-led assessments of private healthcare companies providing NHS-commissioned services.
All independent healthcare providers that provide a regulated activity are required to be registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). As the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England, the CQC is responsible for deciding its own regulatory inspection and assessment framework. The CQC regulates and assesses all providers of regulated activities by looking at five domains – whether they are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led.