Interim guidance on our approach to assessing integrated care systems

We will work with key national and local partners to share data and to gather evidence.

Examples of partners include:

• health and care providers
• professional regulators (for example, the General Medical Council, General Pharmaceutical Council)
• national and local Healthwatch
• community groups, especially those involving people more likely to have poorer access, experiences or outcomes from care
• the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman
• the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

In our assessments of integrated care systems, we will work closely with NHS England. NHS England provides leadership, oversight and support for NHS services in England, and carries out an annual performance assessment of integrated care boards.

We will use the results of NHS England’s oversight and assessments of integrated care boards in our assessments of the integrated care system. Findings from these assessments will inform NHS England’s oversight and support for integrated care boards.

When working together, CQC and NHS England follow these principles:

• We work together to carry out our respective functions effectively, while recognising that each organisation is legally and operationally independent.
• We make sure our definitions, measurement and operations are based on a single shared view of quality.
• We work to remove duplication between our organisations.
• We focus on quality and how it is maintained and improved alongside financial sustainability.

We work together across all aspects of our regulatory and oversight model by:

• sharing data and aiming to use a single, shared standard of measurement, both to review performance and to decide where to target support or oversight
• co-ordinating how we gather evidence to plan assessment activity, using information from NHS England as evidence to inform our judgements
• sharing information on the results of our assessments
• co-ordinating how we engage with individual providers as well as with wider healthcare systems.