For those interested in the history and impact of regulation
Unashamedly marketing this book for Paul, who until recently was employed in the policy team at CQC. In this book he provides an insider's view of why and how they operate in the way that they do.
The book documents the story of CQC’s predecessors including the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Health Improvement and the Audit Commission, the Social Services Inspectorate and the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
It includes an account of how the current regulator, the Care Quality Commission was founded with high ambitions and the reasons these soon gave way to criticism and a loss of public confidence. The book outlines how CQC was then rebuilt through new leadership and funding to become a credible and effective regulator.
This book describes the role played by independent regulators and inspectors in keeping the public safe when they use health and adult social care services. The public is often unaware of this ‘invisible hand’ that operates to protect them. However this low profile can change when there is a need to investigate and put right a serious failure in care, especially when these continue to occur at regular intervals. This could be for example, the poor care given to mainly elderly patients at Mid Staffordshire NHS hospital as found in the 2009 or the abuse of people with learning difficulties exposed by the BBC1 Panorama programme in 2012.
The book explains why we have independent regulators and inspectors and why they operate the way they do. It covers the origins, context, history, development, challenges and achievements of the different independent regulators and inspectorates of health and adult social care in England over the last 40 years. As well as what can be learned from the growing body of research on the impact of regulation.