Help CQC to improve health and social care

Last updated:13 May 2010

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has commissioned CfPS to deliver a development project with Overview and Scrutiny Committees for health and social care (OSCs) which will run throughout 2010-11. The project is one of a number within the CQC’s Peoples Voices Programme.

What are the aims of the project?

• To increase the volume and relevance of the information OSCs send to CQC about local health and social care services in order to inform assessments
• To help CQC colleagues better understand and plan for the sorts of information that they may receive from OSCs, and how they will use it; i.e.. the information local people have raised about their health and social care services.
• To support OSCs to develop their relationship with CQC, and to find out how CQC can support OSCs in their role to hold health and social care services to account at a local level.

What will the project cover?

There are three areas that CfPS will be working on with CQC.

1. Case studies of early relationships between CQC and OSCs

We will publish a set of case studies illustrating how a range of OSCs have been gathering and sharing information about health and social care services with CQC so far

2. Supporting OSCs to try out ways of gathering and submitting information to CQC

We will work with a learning set of 6-8 OSCs to explore and develop different ways of sharing intelligence from local people with CQC. Learning from the groups will be shared with all OSCs across the country through regular briefings during the year.

3. Piloting some new ways in which OSCs can contribute directly to CQC methods and assessments (to run at different times during the year)

How can you get involved?

We are currently looking for case study examples from OSCs that have gathered and shared information with CQC since it was set up.

If you or your authority has provided information to the Commission, and you are prepared to share information about what you did (by telephone and/or email) and attend a short workshop in London on 28 May 2010, please contact Brenda Cook who is leading this project on behalf of CfPS, by contacting laura.freeborn@cfps.org.uk and your email will be forwarded accordingly.