CQC's Definitions of Regulated Activity

Case Law

Suspension of GP Practice CQC Registration

In Sidley Medical Practice v Care Quality Commission [2025] UKFTT 1225 (HESC) the First Tier Tribunal upheld the CQC's decision to suspend a GP Practice's registration due to concerns relating to risk of harm being met. The test is "whether we have reasonable cause to believe that, unless enforcement action is taken, any person will or may be exposed to the risk of harm." The GP was a provider in respect of the regulated activities of diagnostics and screening, treatment of disease, disorder and injury, maternity and midwifery, family planning and surgical procedures (“the Regulated Activities”)

(14 October 2025)

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In Cygnet Health Care Ltd, R (On the Application Of) v Care Quality Commission [2025] EWHC 1 (Admin)  the High Court determined that CQC had not followed its own policy to protect against bias. The case of Porter v Magill (seminal test for bias) should apply, namely: “whether a fair-minded and informed observer, having considered all the relevant facts, would conclude that there existed a real possibility of bias”. The court held that by not following its own policy there would be a real possibility of such an observer concluding that there was a possibility of bias. An inspector had been a patient at the inspected hospitals in the past five years. The judge ordered reconsideration of certain decisions that had been made.

(21 January 2025)

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In R (Hexpress Healthcare Ltd) v Care Quality Commission [2023] EWCA Civ 238 the High Court held that the CQC procedure responding to provider replies, adopted post the case of SSP, could be truncated, limiting what a provider needed to be given by way of explanation in reply to challenges to inspection rating outcomes.

Mr Justice Mostyne stated: "“What has the provider lost if the process is thus condensed? All that has been lost is that the reviewer will not see the “reply” of the provider …. Frankly, I cannot see that as a great loss which justifies such a prolongation of the procedure. I remind myself that we are talking here about errors of primary concrete fact, and not about value judgments on those primary facts. Those errors will have been clearly pointed out in the initial FAC request by the provider. They will either be right or wrong. If the alleged errors are rejected by the inspection team they will have had to have done so for good reasons, referable to hard objective evidence. It is hard to see what the reply can contribute further to the debate.”

The limit created by this case may lead to more litigation (by way of judicial reviews) by providers against CQC in the absence of cogent explanations.

(06 March 2023)

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