Department of Health and Social Care
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Consultation launched on the registration of health and adult social care providers
The Department of Health today launched a consultation to seek views on the registration of health and adult social care providers, including the regulation of primary care services to ensure patients continue to receive safe, good quality care closer to home.
'A consultation on the framework for the registration of health and adult social care providers' puts forward proposals on which services will be required to register with the new regulator and the requirements that they will need to meet.
This will include the registration of primary care services, which now provide more complex services to a high volume of patients in community settings. This received widespread support in the 2006 consultation 'The future regulation of health and adult social care in England'.
Health Minister Ben Bradshaw said:
"More services than ever before are now available in GPs' surgeries and community settings, such as those traditionally provided in hospitals, so it is essential that patients know that these services are safe and are of good quality.
"That is why we are proposing that primary care services are covered by the new regulator and are seeking views on how we best achieve this."
Although GPs and other healthcare professionals are individually registered by their professional governing bodies, the services provided in primary care and community settings are becoming more complex. In order to ensure that regulation is proportionate and avoids duplication, the consultation document asks how a new registration system would interact with the existing systems for monitoring GP performance, such as monitoring by the Primary Care Trust and performance reviews, to minimise the burden of regulation on primary care services.
Notes to editors
1. The consultation will be published at http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_083625
2. The Health and Social Care Bill, currently passing through Parliament, will establish the Care Quality Commission (CQC), a new regulator for health and adult social care services. From April 2009, the CQC will bring together the experience and expertise of the three existing regulators - the Healthcare Commission, the Commission for Social Care Inspection (CSCI) and the Mental Health Act Commission - meaning a more consistent approach to regulation at a time when more and more services are crossing traditional health and social care boundaries.
3. The Care Quality Commission will seek to reduce the burden of inspection on the frontline reducing the level of duplication and bureaucracy faced by providers as well as creating a level playing field across the public and private sectors.
[ENDS]
Richmond House 79 Whitehall London SW1A 2NS
Telephone: (Dept
of Health) 0207 210-3000
