The CQC is going to carry out rapid response inspections of healthcare providers on the basis of the prompts from a new AI-led warning system. This happens to form part of the 10-year NHS Plan by the government, which was published on July 3, 2025, and said CQC is going to move to a more data-centric regulatory model.
It is well to be noted that the new AI-powered early warning system is going to track real-time data in order to flag any kind of safety issues. Where problems happen to be detected, inspection teams comprising highly qualified staff are going to be deployed quickly in order to evaluate service quality.
The plan remarks that in order to support this, they will establish a national AI-led warning system building based on the capabilities in the Federated Data Platform (FDP). All this is going to mean that they are able to evaluate the data in order to identify whether the quality issues occur in parts of the NHS. The fact is that where the AI system goes ahead and flags a concern, it could as well trigger a CQC inspection.
Interestingly, these changes will mean that in the future, the CQC is going to have to use two Inspection models –
Rapid response inspections in which concerns get identified and inspectors are rolled out in order to understand the nature as well as significance of the issues
Routine inspections are where the services are independently getting inspected by the experts, mostly on a 3- to 5-year cycle depending upon the risk level.
The government is also going to take strict action wherein the benchmarks are not met by the healthcare providers, which includes the likes of GPs.
The CQC inspection will ensure persistent poor-quality care results when it comes to the decommissioning or contract termination of providers or services, no matter what the setting is or no matter if the provider happens to be in the NHS or from the independent sector, and even no matter whether they are an individual or a GP practice, said the plan.
There are certain other planned changes, which include extending the legal powers of the regulator and also expanding its inspection. The present three-year time limit when it comes to the CQC so as to bring legal action against healthcare providers is going to be extended.
Apparently, the CQC is also going to take over the function of checking whether every provider has effective freedom in order to speak up, functioning as per the plan. In 2023, notably, NHS in England told ICBs to make it pretty easy for primary care workers in order to have freedom to speak up to guardians in the middle of extremely low levels of whistleblowing.
As part of the plans in order to reduce the number of NHS quangos, the CQC is going to absorb organizations such as the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) in order to counter and also simplify the regulatory avalanche that is overwhelming the system but has not led to certain sustained enhancements in safety, said the plan.
All this happens to follow the Dash review from 2024 of the CQQ’s effectiveness, which went on to find that it had lost credibility, including a marked growth in the time it took in order to reinspect the healthcare services.
It is well to be noted that the average re-inspection times went on to increase from 87 days in 2015 to around 136 days in 2024 because of inadequate ratings and from 142 days to 360 days in the same period in terms of ‘requires enhancement’ ratings.
Besides this, the CQC happened to be plagued due to IT system failures, which went on to lead to the temporary loss of massive amounts of inspection reports, thereby leading to deferral in terms of GP practices receiving the inspection outcomes.
Sir Julian Hartley, the CQC chief executive, has said that they do welcome this ambitious plan, which is future-focused for a world-class NHS that truly goes on to deliver for the patients as well as the public.
He added that they are already developing their new, clearer, simpler evaluation approach and ensuring that their experienced teams of inspectors, which are led by their newly appointed chief inspectors, are going to be able to conduct certain inspections as well as, at the same time, share feedback on the findings in a quicker way.
