What we do

We regulate health and adult social care services in England, whether they're provided by the NHS, local authorities, private companies or voluntary organisations. And, we protect the rights of people detained under the Mental Health Act.


Our strategy

Our strategy sets out what we want to achieve for people who use health care and social care, and how we will go about our work over the next five years.

We have produced a booklet summarising our strategy to help you easily understand our plans for the future.

There are also accessible versions of the strategy available in the following formats:

During the development of the strategy, we consulted on the document to gain feedback on our ideas. If you would like to read the full strategy document or the responses we received to our consultation, you can download them below.

Our priorities

We are driven by the outcomes that people who use services say are important to them, and we focus on what we can do to make a real difference to people.

In everything we do, we consistently focus on equalities and human rights, and pay particular attention to the needs of people in more vulnerable circumstances.

We have five priorities:

Making sure that care is centred on people's needs and protects their rights

We want people to be able to shape their own care.

Championing joined-up care

We will look at how well health care and social care services work together.

Acting swiftly to eliminate poor quality care

People have a right to expect that, if a service falls below essential standards of quality and safety, this is identified and acted on quickly.

Promoting high quality care

Where we see that care is improving, we will tell other organisations that provide or buy care so they can learn from what is working well.

Regulating effectively, in partnership

We will work with other organisations to improve the quality of life for communities and local people.

Effective regulation is one of our five strategic priorities for 2010-2015. We aim to fulfil this by coordinating wider regulatory activities across health and social care and by working in partnership with other organisations and regulatory bodies.

Our main activities

We will deliver these priorities through our four main activities:

Registration and enforcement

From 2010, the cornerstone of our regulatory activity is the new system of registration. It means that people can expect services to meet essential standards of quality and safety that respect their dignity and protect their rights.

Improving health and social care

We encourage improvement by providing independent, reliable and up-to-date information about the quality of providers' care, as well as carrying out special reviews and studies about particular types of care.

Mental Health Act visits

We monitor the care of people whose rights are restricted under the Mental Health Act, and make sure that their interests are protected.

Reporting health and social care  information

In all of our work, we publish information on the quality of care to help people make decisions about their care.

See also