Market Quality in Essex
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. They are responsible for ensuring that health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and they encourage care services to improve.
With the introduction of the Health and Care Act 2022 the Care Quality Commission has a duty to review and assess providers, Local Authorities and Integrated Care Systems. The new framework will ensure a consistent and transparent approach that will provide an up-to-date view of market quality.
Essex County Council also has its own Provider Quality Team which undertake quality assessment audits across regulated services within Essex administrative area.
Our vision is to form strong relationships with our care providers and partners within local communities to create a supportive environment that enables people to achieve the best outcomes and remain independent for as long as possible.
We will look at the four broad elements that are known to be associated with system wide improvement: leadership, skills, culture and infrastructure. We will continue to ensure we are strengthening and improving these core areas, which support strong and effective outcomes for our residents.
We want the people of Essex to be confident that good health and social care means good wherever they are in the county and whichever service they are using.
The current overall rating for CQC regulated providers in the Essex market is 84%, and it has been consistently above the national and regional averages in the recent years.
How does Essex benchmark against other local authorities?
The local authorities shown in the table below are all of the localities in the Eastern Region. it shows how Essex compares, 4th in the region, and how we sit compared to the average across the region which is slightly above the average.
Integration
NHS trusts, and the adult social care market tends to be made up of multiple and often small-scale, independent providers, funded through diverse financial arrangements. The complexity of the system highlights particular difficulties of engaging a hugely diverse network of providers in system-working.
The integration agenda between health and adult social care will continue to work to achieve a greater understanding of each other and define a shared and effective approach.
As ICS’s develop, we will continue to define how people, systems and processes talk and work together across organisational structures and professions, supported by technology, which will support communication and medical information flow as easy as possible.
We’ll look at how the care provided in a local system is improving outcomes for people and reducing inequalities in their care. This means looking at how services are working together within an integrated system, as well as how systems are performing as a whole.
The information shown in the graphs above is correct as of 31st March 2025
