Government launches review to slash ‘red tape’ for care homes

The government has launched a review aimed at cutting the monitoring requirements placed on care homes and supported living services by reducing duplication between the Care Quality Commission and commissioners.

The probe is part of a move to cut red tape across five industries to save businesses time and money by reducing regulatory requirements.

It is the follow-up to a previous review into the regulatory environment facing care homes, which reported in 2013, finding that providers experienced:

• Significant duplication of activities by local authorities and the CQC, imposing unnecessary burdens and leading staff to ‘provide paperwork not care’.
• A lack of coordination and information sharing between the CQC and councils.
• An excessive focus on paperwork rather than quality among the regulator and local authority and NHS commissioners.

Focus of review

The current review will focus on these same issues with a view to removing “unnecessary duplication and overlap in inspections, visits, paperwork, data requests and in commissioning and contract management, whilst safeguarding standards of care and protection for residents”.

It will cover residential homes, nursing homes, respite care and supported living.

The review team would like to hear about examples of duplication in monitoring requirements and activities, evidence of the impact this has had and examples of good practice that can be applied more widely.

The government said that it did not intend to revisit the CQC’s relatively new regulatory framework, introduced in October 2014.

To contribute to the review, post a comment on the government’s ‘cutting red tape’ website.