Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to allow the Care Quality Commission individually to assess local authority and NHS providers where services have not been integrated.

Under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 all providers of regulated activities, including the National Health Service and independent providers, have to register with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and follow a set of fundamental standards of safety and quality below which, care should never fall.

The assessment of adult social care providers and NHS providers is therefore already a part of the CQC’s functions. Some services provided by local authorities are regulated activities, for example, substance misuse services; these are also now subject to inspections and ratings by the CQC under new regulations enacted in October 2017.

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has asked the CQC to undertake 20 targeted reviews of local authority areas under Section 48 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. The purpose of the reviews is to understand the pressures and challenges faced by these systems and identify any areas for improvement. The reviews are focused on services provided at the interface of health and social care, including the interface between social care and general primary care, and acute and community health services. The CQC published an interim report of its reviews in November 2017; a final report will follow in summer 2018.