At Rehab 4 Addiction, everything we do is designed to give you the best kind of care possible.
One of the ways that we do this is by ensuring our rehab facilities live up to your expectations and go above and beyond the requirements needed to be approved by the Care Quality Commission.
The Care Quality Commission (known for short as the CQC) is responsible for regulating health and adult social care in England. [1]
The CQC define their role as to ‘monitor, inspect and regulate services to make sure they meet fundamental standards of quality and safety.’ [2]
This means that the CQC are responsible for monitoring and assessing services across the country to make sure they are meeting the needs of the individuals who use them.
The CQC function under a set of 6 principles that they outline as being their guide to ensuring they are acting on behalf of health and social care users in England.
These six principles are:
The CQC assesses health and social care services in England.
They do this in the interest of services staying ‘safe, effective, compassionate’ places that provide the best level of care possible. [4]
One way they achieve this is by visiting services to ensure that they meet certain levels of professional care.
This is to ensure that service users and staff are treated fairly and are receiving adequate support and are doing so in a clean and appropriate environment.
These inspections are used to ensure that high standards of quality are achieved, and importantly, maintained.
The CQC are involved in inspecting, assessing, and regulating all health and social care providers, including hospitals, GP services, care or residential homes, and addiction rehabs.
This means that all of our rehab facilities at Rehab 4 Addiction are regularly assessed through CQC.
The CQC has a continued presence in any health and social setting, including rehabs.
The Inspection and audit process includes a list of substance treatment settings, including:
One of the key parts of the CQC assessment is registration.
All of our rehab facilities are formally registered with the CQC, which means that we are on record and allowed to provide the addiction support we specialise in at all of our sites across the country.
This means that at Rehab 4 Addiction, all of our addiction treatment services across the country are regulated by a professional body.
Once a service is registered, it needs to be inspected every so often to ensure that it is functioning at a good enough level.
Before inspection, the service will be notified and will be given at least two weeks before the visit will take place.
If a service is very new, it will be inspected but it will not be given a rating just yet. [6]
If there wasn’t a CQC, there’s a risk of a lack of standards.
Unfortunately, not every health and social care service is up to scratch.
Like everything else, having a regulatory body makes sure that staff and services as a whole can be held accountable for their actions.
This means that service users can rest easy that they are accessing support from a trustworthy, reliable, and professional service.
During an inspection, the CQC will look for the following things:
After inspection, the CQC will produce a written report.
This will not only be given to the staff and management at a centre but will also be accessible to the public online.
The report will give a full outline of the findings of the inspection, as well as provide the service with an overall rating.
There are four potential ratings that can be given by the CQC, these are:
These rankings fall on a kind of traffic light system, outstanding and good as green, requiring improvement as amber (showing some concerns) and inadequate as red (suggesting there are major issues in the functioning of a service).
The rating that a service gets will define how long it will be until the next visit.
If a service is given a good or outstanding rating, another inspection needs to take place in the next five years.
If a service is given a required improvement rating, another inspection needs to take place in the next year.
If a service is given an inadequate rating, another inspection needs to take place in the next six months. [8]
Services are expected to meet a minimum set of fundamental requirements in the following areas:
If a service is deemed as having issues within these areas, it will typically be awarded an inadequate rating.
They can then be put into what the CQC calls ‘special measures.’
This means that they will need to be inspected in the next six months and must be able to identify sufficient changes and improvements since the previous visit. [10]
If, in the follow-up inspection, a provider has failed to make sufficient improvements in their service, CQC has the power to stop them from operating. [11]
This means that if a service does not meet expectations on a second assessment, there can be various approaches to enforcement.
The CQC can take a range of measures against addiction rehabs that fail to meet the fundamental standards expected of a registered specialist service.
These can include:
Every addiction rehab, just like all other health and social care providers in England and required to display their CQC rating.
These need to be clearly displayed in two places:
It is very important for these ratings to be displayed.
This means that they are accessible to the public, and service users can refer to them if they wish.
CQC also publishes the report for each service they inspect on their website, meaning that it is possible to read the reports for each service online, too. [13]
This shows that both the service and the CQC as a whole are being transparent and allowing both patients and the public to have access to important information about the services that they use.
It is a positive way of increasing patient awareness and involvement in making informed decisions regarding their care and personal well-being.
This means that you should be able to ask any member of staff involved in your care in an addiction rehab centre to find out more about their CQC rating.
Generally, the increased regulation of addiction services has meant that the quality of care offered in the addiction and mental health sector has improved.
Regulations mean that staff and management in addiction services have a clear idea of what to prioritise and focus on in ensuring their level of care is acceptable.
These regulations and regular inspections also help to reduce the risk of complacency.
Sometimes, when we have been doing something for a while, we can maybe start to feel confident enough in what we’re doing to take our foot off the accelerator.
At Rehab 4 Addiction, we know that complacency in addiction services is not acceptable.
Instead, we use the CQC frameworks and inspection reports to ensure we are continually striving to offer the best treatment possible.
The CQC is also suitable for levelling the playing field.
Like in all private sectors and organisations, without a governing body, there is a risk that businesses and institutions can begin to practice and act in their own ways.
By using the CQC frameworks, the addiction sector has become more standardised.
This means that there are certain sets of practices and a level of care that is expected from everyone.
That does not mean, however, that every provider offers exactly the same support – here at Rehab 4 Addiction, we offer a vast range of treatment types, whereas other services may offer a slightly different list.
Medicine is always changing.
As research progresses, we begin to see different forms of care offered in clinical practice.
This means that from time to time, new treatment techniques, styles or therapies may be inputted into addiction services.
At Rehab 4 Addiction we have a strong emphasis on offering a dynamic treatment plan that provides you with everything you need in your journey to recovery. [14]
This frequently involved inputting new and cutting-edge treatments that can sometimes be a little bit different, such as the use of acupuncture or equine therapy.
The CQC can help us to ensure that whilst we focus on innovative treatment, we never forget the importance of quality, patient-centred care. [15]
The CQC’s fundamental principles have led to an addiction sector that is safer, more supportive and meets the needs of service users with knowledge, empathy, and professionalism.
The ability to know how well a service functions without needing to try it first is a definite plus for those looking for addiction treatment.
It means that you do not need to waste time or risk accessing support at an addiction rehab that is not up to standard.
Instead, you can start your addiction treatment – or recommend a particular establishment to a loved one who may be struggling – with confidence.
Addiction rehabs that rate highly with CQC are also more likely to attract funding from sponsors.
This means that rehabs that are doing particularly well in the addiction sector are likely to also have improved facilities and access to funding to carry out refurbishments and upgrades, meaning that you can often enjoy additional extras.
This means that we can continue doing what we do best – offering specialist support to those who need it.
Rehab 4 Addiction was created to help those struggling with addiction (and their family and friends) to access a range of specialist services in a supportive environment.
CQC inspections are just one of the ways we ensure that we always provide the utmost quality of care to our service users.
If you are concerned about the wellbeing of a loved one, or think that you would benefit from contact with staff at our specialist, CQC-regulated centres, you can contact us today to find out how we can help you.
You can contact us by calling 0800 140 4690, or internationally on +44 345 222 3508.
Alternatively, you can speak to us online on our free chat service to find out how we can help you.
[4] https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20171130_briefing_sms_residential_detox.pdf
[6] https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/the-cqc/how-to-prepare-for-a-cqc-inspection
[9] https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20171130_briefing_sms_residential_detox.pdf
[10] https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/the-cqc/how-to-prepare-for-a-cqc-inspection
[11] https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20150327_special_measures_guidance_pms.pdf
[12] https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20150327_special_measures_guidance_pms.pdf
[13] https://www.bma.org.uk/advice-and-support/gp-practices/the-cqc/how-to-prepare-for-a-cqc-inspection
[14] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/497871
[15] https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/8/12/e024588
Boris is our editor-in-chief at Rehab 4 Addiction. Boris is an addiction expert with more than 20 years in the field. His expertise covers a broad of topics relating to addiction, rehab and recovery. Boris is an addiction therapist and assists in the alcohol detox and rehab process. Boris has been featured on a variety of websites, including the BBC, Verywell Mind and Healthline. You can connect with Boris online at LinkedIn or X.com.
