Full assessment of the regulatory platform is beyond the scope of this review. However, the problems related to the regulatory platform are having a significant adverse impact on both CQC inspection staff and on providers, and are interlinked with the assessment of the single assessment framework and its implementation.

I have been repeatedly told that the use of evidence categories and scoring complicates and delays the production of reports and does not allow for a meaningful narrative that makes sense to providers or the wider public.

Providers have confirmed this and have emphasised the difficulties they have in uploading information needed for the single assessment framework through the provider portal.

As one inspector told me: “I would go back to CRM in a heartbeat”.