Appointment description
The primary objective of the Chair is to ensure the strategic direction of the CQC, the body responsible for making sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care. This is achieved through monitoring, inspecting and regulating services to make sure they meet fundamental standards.
In order to deliver this objective, the Chair will be required to:
- Provide leadership, challenge and direction to the organisation, developing the Board and encouraging and enabling the CQC to be a first-class independent regulator of health and adult social care. This will include leading the transformation of CQC within the context of wider reform of health and social care, so that regulation of the sector is aligned to future models of service delivery.
- Ensure that the CQC carries out its statutory responsibilities.
- In close partnership, with the Chief Executive, set the tone for excellent working relationship with stakeholders, service users, the broader public, the Department of Health and Social Care, wider Government and Parliament to ensure effective regulation; work collaboratively with leaders of other Arm Length Bodies to promote coherence across the health and adult social care systems.
- Provide leadership and strategic oversight throughout the Board’s decision-making processes, ensuring affairs are conducted with probity, and that policies and actions support the Board to discharge its functions and duties effectively, in the interests of patients, providers and service users.
- Ensure the CQC’s executive are held to account for the CQC’s performance, and the delivery of objectives as set out in the appropriate CQC Business Plan. Oversee, scrutinise and enhance already high standards of corporate governance and assurance reporting.
- Provide direction to Board members on organisational performance issues and ensure the right balance of skills mix and expertise so that the Board can complete duties and requirements.
- Set an example of integrity and ethical leadership for the organisation. Ensure the Board assesses the values of the organisation and sets a high ethical standard, reinforcing its reputation as an open and independent body, which puts the needs and interests of the public, patients and service users first, but also treats providers registered to the CQC fairly and with respect.
- Be responsible for the annual assessment of individual performance by the Chief Executive and the Board’s Non-Executive Directors, highlighting areas for growth and setting clear and achievable objectives.
- Chair board meetings; envisage and then rank the key political and strategic priorities for discussion; determine the quality and quantity of information required to advise the conversation; and foster an environment for constructive challenge and cooperation amongst senior colleagues, ultimately steering them to a level of collective agreement.
- Ensure the effective induction and development of new Non-Executive Directors and the continuous development of the Board’s capability, working effectively with the Chief Executive to provide sound governance for the organisation.
- Provide counsel, advice and support to the Chief Executive in particular, and to other Directors; playing the role of mentor/coach, “critical friend” and where necessary acting as a sounding board for potential proposals and ideas.
- Work with the Commission to ensure good governance, and effective management of resources, reflecting the organisation’s role and values as a first-class regulator.
- Ensure the CQC adheres to good financial principles, as set out in HMT’s Managing Public Money and the Cabinet Office’s Partnerships between Departments and Arm’s Length Bodies: Code of Good Practice, including taking particular regard to remuneration policy for senior staff.
Organisation description
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. Its purpose is to ensure health and social care services provide safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and the regulator encourages improvement, where providers fall short of CQC’s fundamental standards. Its role is to register providers of services, monitor, inspect and rate, take enforcement action for poor care, and speak independently on matters of quality in health and adult social care services.
CQC receives the large majority (82% in 2023/24) of its funding through fees charged to registered providers, with a much smaller proportion coming from Grant in Aid from the Department of Health and Social Care.
Total fee income in 2023/24 was £223.3m. Adult social care provided 41% of fee income, with 32% coming from NHS trusts, 17% from GP practices, 5% from independent healthcare providers and 4% from dental practices.
Provider fees have remained static since 2019/20. If they had risen in line with inflation, CQC would have received an additional £25.3m in 2023/24.
The CQC is organised into five areas of work, these are as follows, Operations and Regulatory Leadership covers primary medical services and integrated care, hospitals including mental health, and adult social care. In addition, there are three further directorates supporting CQC’s work: regulatory, customer and cooperate operations; data, technology, and insight; and engagement, policy, and strategy. In terms of employee numbers, the number of directly employed whole-time equivalents was 3,034 in March 2023.
CQC’s strategy sets out 4 strategic ambitions:
1. People and communities: Regulation driven by people’s needs and experiences, focusing on what’s important to people and communities when they access, use and move between services.
2. Smarter regulation: Smarter, more dynamic and flexible regulation that provides up-to-date and high-quality information and ratings, easier ways of working with us and a more proportionate response.
3. Safety through learning: Regulating for stronger safety cultures across health and care, prioritising learning and improvement and collaborating to value everyone’s perspectives.
4. Accelerating improvement: Enabling health and care services and local systems to access support to help improve the quality of care where it’s needed most.
In addition to its role described above, the CQC is required to maintain a statutory committee, Healthwatch England, which acts as a national consumer champion in collecting and disseminating the views of people who use health and social care services. Although Healthwatch England is part of the CQC, it sets its own priorities, has its own brand identity, and speaks with an independent voice.
The National Guardian is a non-statutory appointment by the CQC to lead cultural change in the NHS, to establish and support a strong network of Freedom to Speak Up Guardians. The National Guardian’s Office highlight NHS providers that are successful in creating the right environment for staff to speak up safely and share this best practice across the NHS. It Independently reviews cases where healthcare providers may have failed to follow good practice, working with statutory bodies to take action where needed.
It has been well publicised that the CQC has been, and is still subject to ongoing reviews, regarding its regulatory approach and methodology of assessing health and social care providers. It has been a challenging period for the organisation but it has put in place a recovery plan together with new leadership at the helm, including the appointment of Julian Hartley as Chief Executive.
Board composition
Board meetings are mainly held in London.
Care Quality Commission
Redman Place,
London,
E20 1JQ
Upcoming meetings are 5 February 2025, 26 March 2025, 14 May 2025 and 16 June 2025.
Regulation of appointment
This post is regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments. For more information, please refer to the
Commissioner’s website 