Care Quality Commission launches consultation on fees

27 Oct 2010 01:36 PM

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has launched a consultation on the fees it proposes to charge providers of health and adult social care.

These fees cover CQC’s work in registering providers and monitoring their compliance with essential levels of safety and quality.

The consultation sets out proposals to simplify fees and put in place a single long-term scheme that will cover all providers registered now and those who will be registered from April 2011. It proposes a framework for how fees will be charged based on principles such as fairness, simplicity and proportionality.

Cynthia Bower, CQC’s chief executive, said: “We do not underestimate the impact on providers of paying fees, especially in the current economic climate. We have looked carefully at our costs and will continue to do so. We have a responsibility to collect fees from those we regulate and to demonstrate we are an efficient and effective regulator.”

The consultation document outlines our three main proposals for:

• categories and bandings for fees, including fee amounts
• a single annual fee that incorporates registration and variation fees
• streamlining the payment date for annual fees.

The consultation runs until January 2011.

http://www.cqc.org.uk/yourviews/consultations/registrationfeesscheme.cfm

Notes to editors

CQC’s powers to set fees are contained in Section 85 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.

A further consultation will be carried out in 2011 before providers of NHS primary medical services (GP practices and out-of-hours services) enter the registration system on 1 April 2012.

For further information please contact the CQC press office on 0207 448 9401 or out of hours on 07917 232 143.

About the Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of all health and adult social care in England. Our aim is to make sure that better care is provided for everyone, whether it is in hospital, in care homes, in people’s own homes, or anywhere else that care is provided. We also seek to protect the interests of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act. We promote the rights and interests of people who use services and we have a wide range of enforcement powers to take action on their behalf if services are unacceptably poor.

We are introducing a new registration system that brings the NHS, independent healthcare and adult social care under a single set of essential standards of quality and safety for the first time. Registration is a legal licence to operate. We register health and adult social care services if they meet essential standards and we continuously monitor them to make sure they continue to do so as part of a dynamic system of regulation which places the views and experiences of people who use services at its centre.