Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure (a) consistency and (b) adequate monitoring of care standards in care homes.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator for health and adult social care in England. The CQC monitor, inspect and regulate services, including care homes. To ensure consistency in their approach to regulating providers, the CQC assess all providers against the fundamental standards of quality and safety.

Where concerns on quality or safety are identified, the CQC have a wealth of enforcement powers available and will take swift action to ensure the safety of service users. This could include publishing actions a provider must take to make improvements, restricting a service’s operation or in cases of significant concern, taking action which would lead to the closure of a service. All of these are designed to ensure providers act quickly to improve the quality of care they are delivering.

CQC will continue to engage with providers to monitor services and will act on feedback received from people who use services, their families and other stakeholders when concerns are raised about the quality of care.