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The Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) will overhaul social care regulation and inspection, according to plans published this week, writes Haroon Ashraf.

The proposals for care services in England, used by 1.6 million people, include doing more unannounced visits and using mystery shoppers to check the quality of a service (see story on page 16-17).

The best care providers will get lighter-touch inspections, which will allow inspectors to focus on the worst performing services, said a CSCI consultation document entitled, Inspecting for Better Lives.

The agency said it wanted a raft of measures in a new legal framework by 2006. The proposals include:

-Regulations based on what users say they want
-A new system of registration categories
-Providers legally required to carry out self assessment as a condition of continued registration
-A new system of registration that licenses someone to provide a range of services to adults without having to be re-registered for every new service

On 27 October, the government announced a review of the national minimum standards on which the current regulation and inspection framework is based.