Assessing the early reaction to the Care Quality Commission's 'excellence scheme'

The care sector is abuzz today with debate over the latest announcement from its regulator the Care Quality Commission, regarding the development of a new ‘excellence scheme’ designed to achieve better care results – scheduled to come into place in April 2012.

The regulator has come under growing pressure over recent months to show new direction, with many care providers still unhappy regarding last October’s re-registration process and the discarding of the star system many felt they had worked hard to achieve. As a result, care regulation still seems to be in a state of flux, with care home owners and home care agencies seeking clarity on exactly how their services and capabilities will be judged in future, what levels of direct inspection will they be subject to and to what extent will they be dependent upon collaboration with local councils.

Today’s announcement might perhaps take the first significant step to ensuring a calmer care landscape, but it has already drawn criticism from campaigners and health professionals with little faith that the CQC’s goals are in synch with their own. Notably the English Community Care Association, which appears to be clashing with the CQC on an escalating number of issues, criticised the ‘excellence scheme’ for being delayed until 2012, having desired speedier developments after last year’s overhaul, with concerns that this ‘long gap may result in local authorities and other commissioners setting up their own duplicate monitoring schemes’.

In contrast, Coalition Government minister Paul Burstow has welcomed the new consultation more optimistically, stating that ‘the scheme will enable care providers to gain recognition and… go beyond the essential standards to deliver truly excellent care.’ Despite this, the CQC’s goal to ‘define excellence in adult social care’ through a lengthy consultation process will no doubt be considered sketchy by many of the private and voluntary sector businesses being invited to contribute. We can also speculate that the growing media obsession with highlighting failures in elderly care could mean a trying twelve months for the CQC, should care practices appear to become chaotic through a lack of firm regulation.