CQC encourages people who are deaf or hard of hearing to share their experiences of care

We're partnering with Disability Rights UK to ask people who are deaf or hard of hearing to help services improve by sharing their experiences of care.

It is estimated that one in six people are deaf or hard of hearing. This represents approximately 11 million people today, and this number is expected to rise to 15.6 million by 2035.

We've introduced systems that help people who are deaf or hard of hearing get in touch with us:

Talk to us using British Sign Language (BSL)

We use a service called SignLive. SignLive gives you an interpreter so people can talk to us using sign language. You can use it on your smartphone, tablet or computer.

Contact us by text relay

You can also contact us using the Relay UK app.

Relay UK is a text relay service. You type in what you want to say. An operator reads it out to us. Then the operator types what we say so you can read it.

Use our Give feedback on care service

Tell us about the care you have received using our Give feedback on care form.

• Because we all care: focus on people who are deaf or hard of hearing
• Get help contacting us if you're deaf or hard of hearing
• Give feedback on the care that you or someone you know has experienced

Have your say on how we inspect provision for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities

Ofsted and CQC have launched a consultation on new proposals for the way we inspect provision for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) within a local area. 

Inspectors already check how well local area partnerships meet the needs of children and young people with SEND. The new proposals will mean inspectors will also look more closely at the impact on their lives and outcomes.

Inspection teams will include inspectors from education, health and care so that there can be a deeper understanding of how well different parts of the system work together in a specific area.

The consultation runs until 11 September, and the new inspections will be introduced in early 2023.

• News story: Ofsted and CQC seek feedback on new SEND inspections 
• Consultation: Draft SEND inspection framework
• Consultation page for children and young people 

Join us! Work for CQC

CQC staff have a wide range of skills and work across many disciplines.

Find out about roles within CQC, Healthwatch England and the Office of the National Guardian.

Current vacancies include:

• Senior Resourcing Advisor
• Specialist Advisor - Maternity Services
• Provider Engagement Officer
• Business Analyst (Portfolio Benefits)

Benefits include generous leave entitlement, NHS or Nest pension schemes and a wide range of employee discounts.

Most roles offer flexible locations with the choice to be home-based. See the individual job listings for more information.

• Browse our current vacancies
• Employee benefits

Help shape our work

Our CitizenLab service helps you shape the work that we do.

CitizenLab gives you an easy way to get involved with our work and share your ideas and opinions. We use it to bring together groups of people, collect your views, conduct surveys and run quick polls.

What you tell us helps us understand the things that are important to you. We can use what we learn to make our services and information better for everyone.

The things we're working on change all the time. At the moment, you can feedback on the following:

What kinds of things should we look at when checking health and social care services?

Over the past year we’ve been looking at how we can simplify and improve the way we check health and social care services. We're calling this work the single assessment framework.

We’ve been doing this by working with people who use services, their families, carers and organisations that represent people.

As a key part of the new single assessment framework, we are working to identify the types of things we look at when we check different kinds of health and social care service. This evidence will be used to help us understand the quality of care being delivered.

We’d like to get your feedback on whether we’ve identified the right types of evidence for health and social care services.

If you'd like to find out more about this project or other work taking place on CitizenLab, sign up using the links below. When you join, you'll be sent an email when new information or projects are added. You can also sign in to see what activities are currently live and ready for you to take part in.

• Sign up and get involved

Making sure health and social care staff have the right skills to support people with a learning disability and autistic people

From 1 July 2022, all health and social care providers registered with CQC must make sure that their staff receive training on learning disabilities and autism appropriate to their role. 

This new legal requirement is introduced by the Health and Care Act 2022. 

The government will consult on and publish a code of practice about the training. We expect this to take at least a year to publish. 

We will provide guidance until the new code of practice is published. During our assessments and inspections of providers, we check that staff are working with people appropriately. If not, we look at what training and support has been provided to staff. 

Following the introduction of the new requirement, we will look to see whether providers have provided learning disability and autism training, and have assessed their staff following the training.

We will update our statutory guidance and our website to reflect the introduction of this new requirement.

• Press release: Health and Care Bill granted Royal Assent in milestone for healthcare recovery and reform (GOV.UK)

Rosie Benneyworth to take new role at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch

Dr Rosie Benneyworth, CQC's Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care has announced she will be leaving CQC this summer to take up a new appointment as Chief Investigator at the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch (HSIB).

Since joining CQC in 2019, Rosie has been responsible for CQC's broadest portfolio of services, helping to ensure that people have access to safe, high quality care in general practice, dentistry, secure settings, children's services and more.

Commenting on her announcement, Dr Benneyworth said: "Throughout my career I have been lucky to work with people who are committed to making sure that everyone gets the care that they need. I have seen this in both my colleagues at CQC and in the many dedicated providers that we regulate.

"In my new role at HSIB, I am looking forward to continuing to work with CQC to make sure that everyone gets safe, high quality care."

• News story: Dr Rosie Benneyworth, Chief Inspector of Primary Medical Services and Integrated Care announces departure and new role
• Profile: Rosie Benneyworth 
• HSIB news story: Dr Rosie Benneyworth appointed interim Chief Investigator 

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