Regulation 17 (Good governance)
Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 requires providers to have systems that assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the service, and to keep accurate, complete records.
Regulation 17 (Good governance) in practice
It is the regulation most often cited in enforcement, because almost any other failure can also be read as a governance failure: if something went wrong and the provider had no system that would have caught it, Regulation 17 is engaged.
In practice it means audits that actually run on a cycle, findings that turn into actions with owners and dates, evidence that the actions were completed, and some demonstration that outcomes changed as a result. A folder of completed audit forms with no action trail is the classic way to fail it.
It also covers records: care records that are accurate and contemporaneous, and records about the running of the service itself, held securely and available when CQC asks.
Back to the glossaryRelated definitions
Provider Information Return (PIR)
A Provider Information Return is a structured set of questions CQC sends to a registered provider asking for evidence about the quality of its service, and the answers feed directly into how the service is assessed.
Read definitionQuality Statements
Quality statements are the commitments CQC expects providers to meet, written from the perspective of the person using the service, and grouped under the five key questions of safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.
Read definitionSingle Assessment Framework
The Single Assessment Framework is the structure CQC uses to assess every type of service, built on the same five key questions and quality statements regardless of whether the provider is a care home, a domiciliary agency or a clinic.
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