Our performance reviews
The performance review is our check on how well the regulators have been protecting the public and promoting confidence in health and care professionals and themselves. We publish a report about each regulator every year. Our performance review is important because:
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It tells everyone how well the regulators are doing
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It helps the regulators improve, as we identify strengths and things to improve and recommend changes.
We have recently introduced a new approach to how we review the regulators. This follows two consultations carried out in 2021. You can find out more about the consultations here. In the summer of 2023, we evaluated the success of the implementation of the first year of the new approach to performance review. The report of the evaluation can be found here.
How do we carry out our reviews?
Read our short guide which provides an overview of our review process. Basically, over a 12 month period, we gather and analyse evidence for each regulator to see if they have met our Standards of Good Regulation. The Standards describe the outcomes we expect regulators to achieve for their four regulatory functions: guidance and standards, education and training, registration, and fitness to practise, as well as a set of general standards.
We have recently changed our review process, moving from annual reviews to a three-year cycle. This represents a more targeted approach whereby we review a regulator in detail once every three years (a 'periodic review'). In the other two years of the cycle, we continue to monitor the work of the regulator, along with any concerns we have and risks that emerge.
You can find out more about the Standards of Good Regulation as well as the evidence we look at as part of our review process.
In May 2023, we updated our expectations for regulators in relation to our equality, diversity and inclusion Standard. This involved developing a new evidence framework and accompanying guidance for regulators, which will apply from 2023/24 to 2025/26.
You can also read our latest reports opposite or find all of them in our performance review reports page.
It is important for us to hear from people about how the regulators are performing - individuals and organisations alike. If you have any experience of contacting or working with a regulator, please share this with us. Your feedback can help us to ask the right questions of the regulators and informs us about risks we might otherwise not be ware of. Find out more here.
How we escalate performance review concerns
In 2020 we introduced an escalation policy that would allow us to escalate serious or intractable concerns to others, particularly in Government and Parliament. This includes where a regulator has not met the same Standard for three years, or where we had concerns so significant that we considered they needed escalating even if they were new. There are several actions we may take as part of the escalation process, including writing to the regulator’s Chair, the Secretary of State for Health and Social care, and/or the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee. We may also introduce closer monitoring of the issue with the regulator.
In 2022 we updated the process to reflect the changes we had made to our approach to performance reviews. The process document can be found here.
Reviewing the regulators in practice
Find out more about how our work reviewing the regulators' performance contributes to protecting the public in this
short case study