The fees reflect Government guidance to CQC that it must recover the costs of regulation from providers.
The CQC received 767 responses to the consultation, from a total of about 21,000 providers. These included responses from major stakeholders representing different sectors.
Consideration of the responses led to a number of changes from the original proposals. These included:
- Reducing fees to small dental providers and independent ambulance providers by approximately 50 per cent, with a review of the assumptions on the level of regulatory activity and associated costs for these newly regulated providers in the first year.
- Phasing the increases in fees to small care homes over several years
- Small increases in fees to larger homes.
Chief executive of the CQC Cynthia Bower said: ‘Our approach to fees is based on fairness and on raising only as much income as we need to cover the costs of regulation. We have listened to what providers told us during the consultation and have made changes to address concerns.’
The new fees scheme standardises the way providers will be charged fees from April 1, 2011. All providers will receive a single annual invoice; provider and manager registrations and variations to registration will not be charged for separately. All providers will be charged depending on where they sit within a number of categories and bands, for example, NHS organisations are in bands determined by turnover; bands for care homes relate to the number of registered places in a home; bands for dental providers relate to the number of locations (surgeries).