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Earlier this year, we held a series of roadshows with adult social care providers to hear their views on the future of regulation.
In this new blog, Chris Badger, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care, reflects on the themes that emerged from those conversations. Providers highlighted the importance of regulation being clear, consistent and proportionate, alongside a stronger focus on outcomes and the experiences of people using services. Feedback also explored how CQC can make better use of data and intelligence, support improvement, and build constructive relationships with providers as we develop our future approach to regulation.
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You can also read a blog from Professor Bola Owolabi CBE, Chief Inspector of Primary Care and Community Services, in which she reflects on feedback from colleagues across primary care and community services and how this is helping to shape the future of regulation.
 We have now completed more than 9,000 assessments, reaching an important milestone ahead of our end of September target.
This reflects progress in increasing our assessment activity and reducing waits for providers. It is an encouraging step as we continue to strengthen our regulatory approach and improve how we carry out our role.
We recognise there is still more work to do. Improving our performance and providing a more consistent, timely and effective service for providers and the public remains a key priority.
As part of our planning for the future, we are modelling assessment activity and demand over the next 18 months. This will help inform future inspection and assessment volumes and support a sustainable approach to regulation.
Alongside this, we continue to improve our digital systems, registration processes and the overall experience of interacting with CQC.
We will continue to share updates as this work progresses. Our focus remains on supporting high-quality care through effective regulation.
We're pleased to confirm that we are introducing portfolio holders across adult social care (ASC) services. This approach has been tested with approximately 1500 ASC services across 495 providers since September 2025. Our evaluation considered feedback from providers and CQC colleagues, and both groups shared the positives in improved relationships and more timely responses.
We're rolling this work out in stages, beginning last month in London, and will expand across the country later in the year. This phased approach will support us to learn and adapt to get it right for services and our colleagues.
CQC portfolio holders oversee the information we receive about the services in their portfolio, and act as a consistent point of contact for support and communication. Providers will be able to contact their portfolio holder via email to discuss the quality of care at their service. Processes for tasks such as submitting notifications and factual accuracy comments will not change.
Providers in our Market Oversight and Corporate Provider schemes will continue to have contact with these teams. Portfolio holders will work with these teams to ensure that information around quality and risk within services is shared.
Portfolio-holding inspectors will not necessarily complete assessments for services in their allocated locations. They will, however, support those undertaking inspections by sharing key information.
We will email individual services directly with details of portfolio holders as they are assigned during the rollout.
We've worked with the Care Workers’ Charity and its advisory board, who shared with us that uncertainty around CQC inspections can sometimes create unnecessary stress for staff in services.
To help improve understanding of our role and what we're looking for during inspections, we’ve recently published information for care workers on our website. The guide sets out who we are, our purpose and what we expect from care workers while we're inspecting. By providing clearer information, we hope to support care workers, reduce uncertainty and help create a positive inspection environment where people can focus on delivering high-quality care. You can also download a poster to display in your service, which enables your care staff to link to the guide. Please do share this with staff.
Skills for Care’s ‘Filled posts in the adult social care workforce in England: monthly statistics’ has been recognised as an official statistic.
Produced using data from the Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS), the statistics provide valuable insights into workforce trends across the adult social care sector. The interactive dashboard can be filtered by region and CQC service type, supporting workforce planning and helping inform policy and funding decisions.
By keeping ASC-WDS records up to date, providers not only contribute to a more accurate picture of the sector but can also access a range of free workforce management tools. These include a training and qualifications report, which provides a clear overview of staff learning, qualifications and compliance requirements. The report can help employers identify training gaps, monitor mandatory training and support workforce planning.
Skills for Care has thanked providers who regularly update their ASC-WDS data, recognising that their contribution helps ensure workforce data remains robust, trusted and valuable across the adult social care sector.
Other news
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Care England has published a Good practice guide: Preventing choking deaths among people with learning disabilities. People with a learning disability are at particularly high risk of choking when eating and drinking, and the guide recognises the social, cultural and emotional importance of eating and drinking as well as the physical necessity. Developed by a collaborative group of providers, Speech and Language Therapists, risk experts, regulators and people with a learning disability, the guide is accompanied by a toolkit of resources to equip those supporting people with a learning disability at all levels - frontline staff, managers and at provider level - to support better recognition and oversight of autonomy, choice and risk.
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We've updated the current statutory notification 17 (SN17, death of a detained mental health patient) notification form in both the Word document format and on the provider portal. The new form is shorter and simpler to make it quicker and easier to submit. The change took effect on 17 July 2026. All SN17 notifications should now be submitted using the new form, either as a Word document or the online provider portal form. If you have questions about any of these changes, please contact us.
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We’ve published more information about our programme of returning to services rated as good to confirm whether the rating remains accurate. The web page includes information about services eligible for a returning to good inspection, what providers can expect during an inspection, the quality statements we will assess, and the processes for making judgements and publishing reports.
Guidance and links
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