Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of waiting times for Care Quality Commission initial inspections for (a) GP practices, (b) dental practices and (c) care homes.

The Department has introduced additional oversight measures to ensure significant improvements are made to the Care Quality Commission’s (CQC) operational performance.

CQC is aware of the issues providers have experienced with delays in processing registration applications and the reduction in the number of assessments it undertakes.

CQC is progressing four immediate actions and five foundational improvements, which includes clearing the backlog of registration applications and making improvements to its assessment approach to enable it to complete more, and better quality, assessments. These actions will ensure CQC is more efficient, and lead to a reduction in the time providers wait before they receive a first inspection and rating.