CQC reports and registration
Measuring quality of patient care
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of healthcare and social care services in England. It makes sure that hospitals, care homes, dental and doctors' surgeries and other care services in England provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality healthcare.
By inspecting medical services, and publishing the information, the CQC helps people make better decisions about the healthcare they receive.
Improving patient care at the Royal Free London: the role of the CQC
The CQC places quality of healthcare at the centre of its system.
The quality standards of the CQC are translated into expected ‘outcomes’. The outcomes describe hospital quality and patient safety as viewed from the perspective of the people using our medical services.
The outcomes cover the important aspects of healthcare, including:
- patient involvement and quality of health information
- levels of personalised healthcare and medical treatment
- patient safety and safeguarding
- Read about how we strive to improve patient care at our London hospitals in our vision, mission and values.
- Find out more about our commitment to patient safety in our clinical quality indicators.
- Full details of the trust's compliance can be found on the Care Quality Commission website.
CQC inspection programme
The new CQC hospital inspections involve significantly larger inspection teams than CQC has used in the past. The teams – called inspection panels – include doctors, nurses and other experts and trained members of the public. They cover eight key services areas in every site that delivers acute services:
- A&E
- medical care (including frail elderly)
- surgery
- intensive/critical care
- maternity
- paediatric/children’s care
- end of life care
- out-patients