The Care Quality Commission

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) makes sure there are good health care and social care services for adults in England.

We check up on services run by the NHS, local councils, private companies and voluntary organisations.

And we speak up for the rights of people kept in care by a law called the Mental Health Act.

When we say social care on these web pages, we mean adult social care.

About CQC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) started in April 2009.

CQC checks both health care and social care in England. No one else has checked both before.

This means that we can give, for the first time, a complete picture of care in England - including how well the 2 areas work together for people who use both types of care.

It is our job to make sure services are doing the things they should be doing by giving people good services that leave them feeling good about using them and are safe.

We are checking services all the time, all over the country, making sure they are good enough. We also look at how things are going across the country as a whole and write a report for Parliament about this.

We have included what's working well and what needs to get better, while thinking about the needs of all the people in England who use health care or social care services.

This is an EasyRead report on how well care is doing in 2009. For more details please see our full report for Parliament.

In 2009, people's health care and social care in England continued to get better with some services and areas of the country doing really well.

But there are still some problems that need to be sorted out before everyone using care services has a good service. We think it is really important to make sure that:

• you get the same good health care or care service even if you live in different parts of the country or use different services
• your care meets your needs not the needs of the system
• health care and social care work better together, so that people's care is as joined-up as possible.