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F54

Care Quality Commission independence strategy and culture

Mid Staffs Inquiry · Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · Issued 6 February 2013 · Addressed to: CQC

Government responseDepartment of Health and Social Care: Accepted (Nov 2013)

DeliveryDHSC and NHS England say in progress (Feb 2026)Department of Health and Social Care says in progress (Feb 2015)

Recommendation, verbatim from the inquiry

●Inquiry recommendation

Where issues relating to regulatory action are discussed between the Care Quality Commission and other agencies, these should be properly recorded to avoid any suggestion of inappropriate interference in the Care Quality Commission's statutory role.

Mid Staffs Inquiry, Report of the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry · 6 Feb 2013 Source PDF →

Published evidence summary

AI-generated evidence summary

In February 2026, the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England reported that the Care Quality Commission records all decision-making meetings and actions, with minutes also taken for joint work involving the National Quality Board (DHSC and NHS England, Feb 2026). Earlier, in May 2024, the Thirlwall Inquiry legal team noted that the measure was accepted and recorded that partnership agreements to formally record meetings had been established with bodies including the Local Government Ombudsman and the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team, May 2024).

AI-generated summary of the record on this page, checked by a second model and automatic checks, 26 Sep 2026.

Report-level response context

Government responded via "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (2014), a single document covering all 290 recommendations with a blanket acceptance. Individual recommendation responses were not broken out.

Government response

●Department of Health and Social Care · Accepted · 19 Nov 2013

Speaker not recorded. Source: Department of Health, Hard Truths: the Journey to Putting Patients First, volume 2 (Cm 8777-II), November 2013

Accepted.
The Care Quality Commission is implementing this recommendation by means of partnership agreements and operational protocols which include criteria to make and store a formal record of meetings. So far, these cover the Care Quality Commission’s relationships with Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority, Healthwatch England and the General Medical Council. The Care Quality Commission will extend this approach to other stakeholders, foremost among which are the other professional regulators and the Ombudsmen.

Extract from: Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First. Volume Two of the Government Response to the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry: Response to the Inquiry's Recommendations

Site note: This is volume two of "Hard Truths: The Journey to Putting Patients First" (Cm 8777-II), the government's response to the Inquiry's 290 recommendations, published by the Department of Health on GOV.UK on 19 November 2013 and dated to that day here. The PDF the row links to is the accessible edition, whose title page reads "January 2014". The Department of Health has been the Department of Health and Social Care since January 2018. The volume says it includes accounts from each of the national organisations the recommendations name, but it does not mark which passage each organisation wrote, so every row is filed under the Department that published it.

Delivery

●DHSC and NHS England say in progress · 27 Feb 2026

CQC notified the Department that all decision-making meetings are recorded, and all actions are recorded. Please see our response to recommendation 35 for how NHS England works with CQC including the work of the National Quality Board. Minutes of these meetings are taken.

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025)

Site note: DHSC and NHS England's own account of progress, supplied to the Thirlwall Inquiry in September 2024 and printed in the Inquiry legal team's Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version dated April 2025, published 27 February 2026). It is not a finding of the Inquiry. Their reviewed extent of implementation reads “Implemented – Ongoing”. Table row: section 18.2 No. 54, PDF page 453.

●Department of Health and Social Care says in progress · 11 Feb 2015

The Care Quality Commission is the independent regulator of health and adult social care providers in England. The Government has put in place a series of measures to give it greater independence. These include the removal of a number of specific powers for the Secretary of State for Health to intervene in its day to day work, the appointment of three Chief Inspectors and a strengthened Board.

The Care Quality Commission is currently developing a Memorandum of Understanding with the Local Government Ombudsman. This will be underpinned by an information sharing protocol which will set out the circumstances and the nature in which information will be shared between the two bodies, the frequency information will be shared and the use to which it will be put.

Similarly, the Care Quality Commission is also developing a protocol for sharing information, including relevant emerging and urgent concerns, safeguarding issues and whistleblowing concerns with the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (this does not apply where the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman may be investigating the Care Quality Commission).

These agreements aim to enable each organisation to fulfil its regulatory and/or statutory duties and responsibilities proportionately and collaboratively.

From: Culture Change in the NHS supporting Annex (annex to Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries)

Site note: This is the supporting annex published on 11 February 2015 with "Culture change in the NHS: applying the lessons of the Francis Inquiries" (Cm 9009), attached to the GOV.UK page as "Culture change in the NHS supporting annex". The annex has no title page; that title is GOV.UK's and the PDF's own. Its table has four columns (No., Recommendation, Hard Truths Government response, Progress update), and the row carries the Progress update cell. No column says which organisation wrote an update, so the row is filed under the Department of Health (now the Department of Health and Social Care), which published it.

Site note: The Inquiry addressed this recommendation to the Care Quality Commission, not to the Department of Health. The annex gives this update in the Department's publication and does not say who wrote it, so the row is the Department's report of the progress made on it.

What other bodies have found

In their own words. These do not change the delivery statement above.

●Thirlwall Inquiry legal team · 15 May 2024

This recommendation was accepted by the Government.

In the January 2014 Hard Truths report, the Government referred to implementation of this recommendation via partnership agreements and operational protocols which include criteria to make and store a formal record of meetings, including with Monitor, the NHS Trust Development Authority, Healthwatch England the General Medical Council.

Such agreements were also agreed with the Local Government Ombudsman (agreed in late 2014) and the Parliamentary and Health Services Ombudsman (agreed in September 2013)

From: The Thirlwall Inquiry: Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024)

Site note: The Thirlwall Inquiry legal team's own notes on implementation, from its Review of Implementation of Recommendations from Previous Inquiries into Healthcare Issues (version of 15 May 2024). The review does not colour its Extent of Implementation cell for this recommendation green; it leaves the cell uncoloured where a recommendation was rejected, where evidence of implementation was insufficient, or where steps had been taken but implementation was not yet complete. Table row: section 16.2 No. 54, PDF page 416-417.

How this page is built

The recommendation and the government responses are verbatim from primary documents. Delivery statements and other bodies' findings are shown in their own words, each with its source. The summary is written by this site and labelled as such. The Index does not paraphrase sources or characterise intent; it records what has been published.