Regulation of services
29.2Adult health and social care services in England are, in the main, regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC),
1www.cqc.org.uk.an executive non-departmental public body of the Department of Health, set up by the Health and Social Care Act 2008, supplemented by Part 2 of the Care Act 2014. It replaces the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection and the Mental Health Act Commission and regulates hospitals, care homes, dental and general practices, domiciliary care providers and other mental health and care services.
29.2.1Detailed machinery is to be found in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Regulation 3 and Schedules 1 and 2 prescribe, in essence, that most forms of social and health care are ‘regulated activities’ in England. Regulations 3 to 7 lay down the requirements to be satisfied by the ‘registered persons’ who undertake ‘regulated activities’. Regulations 8 to 20 set out fundamental standards to be met by ‘registered persons’ when providing ‘regulated activities’. Regulation 21 requires ‘registered persons’ to take into account guidance issued by the CQC
2www.cqc.org.uk/content/guidance-providers/. and regulations 22 to 25 and Schedule 5 provide criminal sanctions.
29.3Most children’s services in England are regulated by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills, backed up by Ofsted
3www.gov.uk/government/organisations/ofsted.(the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (a non-ministerial government department)) – including state and independent schools, children’s homes, residential family centres, child-minding, child day care, children’s social care, CAFCASS, teacher training providers, colleges and learning and skills providers and fostering and adoption agencies. The primary legislation is sections 1–5 of the Care Standards Act 2000, the Children Act 1989 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002.
29.4.1In Wales, the Care Council for Wales regulates social services in Wales but will be replaced from April 2017 by Social Care Wales, which will operate under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016.
4http://gov.wales/topics/health/socialcare/regulation/?lang=en. 29.5There are numerous regulatory bodies concerned with health care provision:
•the Care Quality Commission
5www.cqc.org.uk/.oversees the provision of safe, effective, compassionate and high quality care in hospitals, care homes, dental and GP surgeries and all other care services in England;
•NHS Improvement
6https://improvement.nhs.uk/.brings together Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Agency and the Patient Safety elements operated by NHS England and aims to protect and promote the interests of patients by ensuring that the whole health sector works for their benefit – in effect it regulates competition within the NHS and manages performance generally;
•Healthwatch England and Local Healthwatch organisations
8www.healthwatch.co.uk/.are founded by Chapter 1 of Part 5 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012 and are designed to feed the voice of the patient into the NHS and to champion their interests (there are now 152 Local Healthwatch groups);
•Health Overview and Scrutiny Committees, set up by Chapter 3 of Part 12 of the National Health Service Act 2006, are comprised of members of the local social services authority. They may review and scrutinise any matter relating to the planning, provision and operation of the health services in their area and are entitled to be consulted about any substantial development of the health service in their area and to refer any objection on their part to the Secretary of State for Health (see Part 4 of the Local Authority (Public Health, Health and Wellbeing Boards and Health Scrutiny) Regulations 2013;
29.6Throughout Great Britain, the Health and Safety Executive
10www.hse.gov.uk/healthservices/arrangements.htm#a1.operates as an independent regulator for health and safety in the workplace, which includes all private and publicly owned health and social care settings.