This involves making immediate changes to support its response to the recommendations in the interim report from Dr Penny Dash and to improve its ways of working ahead of the publication of the final report.

The regulator says it is recruiting a new chief executive and will appoint three chief inspectors to strengthen its leadership across the health and care sectors that it regulates.

Working with Professor Sir Mike Richards and Professor Vic Rayner, the Chair of the Care Provider Alliance, CQC is reviewing longer-term improvements to its single assessment framework and how it use it. Their work is being informed by discussions with colleagues, providers and stakeholders, as well as insight and feedback from people who use services and the public.

In addition, a current pilot project is looking at a better way of managing CQC's relationship with providers. This pilot has started with NHS trusts and will expand to involve groups of providers in each sector. These pilots will run until early next year, when CQC will decide how to apply the most effective approach.

Another pilot project is looking at how CQC's operations managers can manage teams in specific sectors.

Internal improvements to how CQC work, along with recruiting more staff, will support it to increase the number of monthly assessments. Some actions include:

• Making changes to single assessment framework. CQC will be scoring at quality statement and rating at key question level. Assessments will still evaluate evidence categories to reach a quality statement score, but it will not score evidence categories. It will apply professional judgement to ensure it is a complete picture and the quality statement scoring is correct. This will allow CQC to assess and inspect more services while ensuring its ratings are robust.
• CQC will also change how it uses technology to improve how it carries out assessments, and the processes for factual accuracy checks, producing reports, and registration. CQC will also make improvements to the provider portal.

The regulator said: ‘These new approaches will be evaluated to ensure we fulfil our core purpose. This will be through independent evaluation and working with providers and the public if new approaches are rolled out more widely.

‘We are progressing our work to assess local authorities on their duties under the Care Act 2014, implementing ongoing improvements to our approach as we go. We will continue to engage to ensure that we are hearing the voice of health and care providers and feedback from the local government sector.

‘Discussions with the Department of Health and Social Care are ongoing regarding when we will commence our assessments of integrated care systems (ICSs), in line with our statutory duty. We will also need to consider any recommendations in the final report from Dr Penny Dash that relate to this work. This means that our ICS assessments are currently paused.'

CQC says wants to ‘co-design' its approach, by engaging online and face-to-face, focusing initially on designing what a rating of good looks like and developing a clear and accessible regulatory handbook.

In response, Care England has expressed disappointment in the CQC's latest approach to restoring trust in its regulatory operations.

Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, said: ‘Dr Penny Dash released the interim review into the CQC's operational effectiveness in July. Yet, three months later, the sector remains in the dark about how the CQC intends to address its deep-rooted issues. Today's announcement offers more of the same – promises of transparency, quicker assessments, and clearer reports – yet fails to deliver the tangible actions providers desperately need.

‘The absence of measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) and defined timelines in this plan points to a continued lack of accountability. Providers need concrete benchmarks, not vague assertions of ‘immediate changes' and ‘pilots' that provide no certainty for improvement. Without a clear, actionable roadmap, trust cannot be rebuilt.'

Care England is calling the CQC to outline specific KPIs and timelines to a clear understanding of when improvements to assessments, registration processes, and reporting will be delivered.

Green added: ‘The time for promises has passed. Providers urgently need concrete actions, specific deadlines, and real accountability from the CQC. The future of adult social care depends on it.'