Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of registration timeframes for new healthcare providers registering with the Care Quality Commission.

The Department is aware of delays experienced by new healthcare providers registering with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and has increased its oversight of the CQC to ensure the backlog of applications that are over 10 weeks old, is reduced. The CQC is prioritising applications that increase the capacity to the health and social care system, and/or that help manage winter pressures in the National Health Service or social care.

The CQC is reviewing their IT systems to inform the changes it will need to implement to ensure the registration process is efficient.