The Department of Health and Social Care has published the interim report of Dr Penny Dash’s review into the operational effectiveness of the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The interim report, which will be followed by a final report this autumn, provides a summary of the emerging findings and outlines a series of recommendations. Our briefing sets out an overview of Dr Dash’s interim findings, the government’s and CQC’s responses, and NHS Providers’ view of the report.

The interim report's five recommendations for CQC are:

1. Rapidly improve operational performance
2. Fix the provider portal and regulatory platform
3. Rebuild expertise within the organisation and relationships with providers in order to resurrect credibility
4. Review the Single Assessment Framework to make it fit for purpose
5. Clarify how ratings are calculated and make the results more transparent particularly where multi-year inspections and ratings have been used.