Fundamental standards for health and social care providers

All health and adult social care providers registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) will have to meet the fundamental standards. These are the basic requirements that providers should always meet and the standard of care and service that patients or care-service users should expect.

They will be legal requirements – CQC will be able to take enforcement action, including prosecution where appropriate, when they find breaches.

This consultation:

• sets out our aims for the fundamental standards
• sets out our responses to CQC’s previous consultation on the principles behind fundamental standards
• includes a draft of the regulations that will introduce the fundamental standards.
• asks whether the draft regulations meet those aims.
• asks about the impact of the new regulations on providers