Agenda Item: 13
Paper no: CM/02/12/12

Section
Overview
Strategy for communicating with people who use services
Provider communications strategy review and results of benchmarking survey
Digital Strategy (excluding Online Services)
Media Strategy
Page
2-4
6-10
12-16
18-23
25-37
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These responsibilities are discharged through the following teams :
Communications delivery
Media relations
Digital communications
Public affairs
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Although focused on particular audiences all SMC teams work to five key business priorities that bring each of the SMC strategies together. These themes underpin our actions as a team and provide a focus for our delivery.
Clarify CQC ’s goals and role, build our reputation, and demonstrate that we effect change. (All strategies)
Develop a sector-led approach to help providers understand and recognise the value of our model. (Provider strategy and Digital Comms strategies)
Build understanding among people who use services of CQC ’s role, the value of our public information and the importance of what people tell us in our work. (Public Comms strategy and Digital Comms strategies)
Develop a strategic approach to demonstrating effectiveness and building advocacy via media and public affairs channels. (Media strategy)
Promote staff ownership of what we do and how to improve it, by recognising how our work benefits people who use services. (Internal Comms and engagement strategies)
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Agenda Item: 13
Paper no: CM/02/12/12

We are one of a number of organisations providing valuable information about health and social care services that supports choice – the regulator’s view of whether or not providers are meeting government standards
We target our communications and resources on those who most need to know about our information and makes the information available in an accessible way
We make our findings publicly available, syndicate them through partnerships with selected third parties and tailor them to suit that partnership
We test whether our public information meets the needs of people who use services with key voluntary and statutory organisations, public focus and reference groups
We undertake pilots to identify and evaluate additional sources of user voice, build systems and processes to track soft intelligence information through our systems
We build our brand online, including our need for feedback

User communications has a clear remit
We will have defined our role in providing information for people who use services, continuing to improve it to make sure it is clear, transparent, accessible and supports our role
We will have identified new sources of valuable, structured ‘soft’ intelligence and driven improvements to the way we process them
We have improved understanding among representative groups of CQC’s role, the public benefit of what we do, and what the essential standards mean to them
We will have increased awareness of our brand online

Continue to interpret the regulatory model into clear, transparent, accessible public information on our website, including provider profile v 2, and resolve continuing and new publication issues through a dedicated task and finish group
Improve the inspection report design and generic content and ensure staff are trained on writing clear, accessible plain English reports
Continue to improve the new website – downloadable list of up to date basic information about providers; improved search functionality; alternative formats functionality; more transparent information about services we have registered but not yet inspected; information about a service’s record of compliance; location history and deregistered services; RSS feeds
Develop a new website and public content for Healthwatch England
Highlight regular thematic reports about the state of care through fit for purpose management information
Test public facing policies, messages and products with public focus groups and public reference group; test web functionality with user testing
Post strategic review, review and refresh all corporate materials and content to provide more clarity about what we offer to the public, including clarity about role of Healthwatch England and local Healthwatch; deliver new public corporate content for mental health users

Improved access to user voice Build understanding of CQC role
Improve information to assist choice
Pilots with key voluntary orgs
Communications partnerships with key Third Sector orgs
Local Authority and statutory groups newsletters and websites
CQC website
Other third parties eg Local Government
Ombudsman
Local and regional media
Inspection report
GP surgeries and targeted groups (regional pilot)
Other third parties eg Local
Government Organisation
Digital engagement channels
Syndication and search engine marketing
Local and regional media
(regional pilot)
Public bulletin
Leaflets in ASC/IH locations
RSS feeds to subscribers
Improved web form Leaflets distributed during inspections by CQC inspectors
Testing of messages, policies and products via public focus groups and public reference groups; web functionality tested with user testing
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Demonstrable increase in baseline awareness and understanding of
CQC ’s role amongst targeted groups
Increased download rates for our public leaflets
Increased view rates for public dashboard
Demonstrable satisfaction surveys on information we provide
April 2013
April 2013
April 2013
December 2013
Increased hit rate for received messages in local and regional media
Evaluation of user voice pilots demonstrates 20% increase in direct user voice in QRP and that 20% of targeted additional user voice is of value to inspectors
April 2013
September 2012

April 2012 - March 2013
Agenda Item: 13
Paper no: CM/02/12/12

Aim
Ensure communication from CQC is coordinated and consistent
Embed the new system of registration and compliance monitoring
From
Providers receiving uncoordinated, and often conflicting, information from various teams across CQC.
Varying experiences of CQC. Lack of clarity around roles.
To
Providers receive regular joined up communication that is relevant, targeted and consistent.
Providers say they receive clear consistent advice from CQC.
Clear, well defined roles so providers know what is expected of them and who to contact if they have a query.
Slow response from CQC in response to queries, processes, publication etc…
Agreed SLAs for providers are being met and are available on our website for providers to view.
Involve providers in developing and improving our system
Very little engagement with the sector. Little response given to feedback received.
Website that is difficult to navigate and with a poor search facility.
Reliance on paper processes with limited online services.
Clearly defined feedback mechanisms with regular reporting about how it has been used (both internally and externally)
New public website with improved navigation and content tailored to audiences. Move to online services.

Coordinated and consistent communication
Developed strong working relationship with NCSC resulting in improved coordination and consistency of communications –
83% of providers in recent survey say they ‘sometimes’ or ‘always’ find the information they receive from CQC consistent
Embedding the new system of registration and compliance
Improved understanding of ‘basics’ of registration and compliance by core provider groups (NHS, ASC and IH)
87% of providers in recent survey say they have access to the information they need to operate under our new regulatory system
Involving providers in developing our system
Online communities have been extended and improved – over
3,000 current members (increased from 1,300 in 2010)
83% of survey respondents say they find it beneficial being a member of our online communities
E-bulletins have been successfully reviewed and relaunched to make them more consistent and targeted
New e-bulletin for professional
(clinicians and professionals) launched in January 2012
Successfully coordinated communications activity for registration (including stakeholder engagement) for dentists, independent ambulances and
OOH providers
58% say they feel the feedback they provide is listened to by cqc
(improved from 28% in 2010)
Quarterly sentiment tracking launched per survey
– three surveys carried out to date with over 200 responses
69% of survey respondents say they receive our monthly bulletin.
Of those, 80% say they ‘always’ open and read it.
Developed and delivered strategy for early engagement with GP services – positive response received – over 450 people
Managed engagement with providers during build up to launch of new website – 73% of survey respondents said they felt informed during the launch

Building the relationship Understanding the basics
Introducing CQC and the basics of registration. Myth busting
Understanding the basic mechanics of registration and compliance
Accepting our model
Understanding how to use our model as part of management assurance
NHS/ASC/IH providers
Dental / ambulance providers
Primary medical services

Providers understand the role of CQC and our model of regulation
Deliver communications plan to ensure smooth registration of primary medical services
Providers feel engaged and that their views have been taken into account
Carry out benchmarking survey with all providers to measure opinion of CQC role and impact
Continue quarterly provider sentiment tracking
Develop and deliver communications plan for improvements to regulatory model
Continue to deliver monthly ebulletins (and sector specific email updates) to keep providers informed
Engage providers in publication of quarterly market analysis reports
Review current online communities and develop plan for further development
Engage providers to consider improvements to BAU registration and compliance
Work with relevant trade associations to ensure the views of their members are taken into account
Providers have a positive view of CQC customer service
Focus on improvements to customer service (online services;
‘account administration’ at NCSC etc…)
Work with ‘corporate provider compliance team’ to develop targeted plan for engagement with corporate providers
Continue to develop methods for improved engagement with clinicians and professionals
Continue to review targeting of our communications to ensure providers receive regular targeted information

Improvement in understanding of the benefits of our role (by providers) over next six to 12 months (based on benchmarking done in March
2012)
Response rates to benchmarking and sentiment tracking surveys
Feedback from trade associations and through provider surveys
Improvement in subscription figures and open / read rate statistics for ebulletins and online communities (based on figures at March 2012)
Feedback from Specialist Advice Advisory Group (Prof. Deirdre Kelly’s working group on engagement with professionals)
April 2013
Ongoing (and
April 2013)
April 2013
April 2013
September 2012

April 2012 - March 2013
Agenda Item: 13
Paper no: CM/02/12/12

Ensure that CQC ’s work is seen much more widely.
Adapt to become a provider of syndication products
Raise awareness online of the fact that CQC needs to know about people's experience of care.
Gather more information about people's experience of care from our website & from other places around the web
Ensure that CQC ’s judgments and reports are published accurately and on time – and shine a light on any parts of publication process that need to be improved
Work to make CQC a more transparent organisation

1.
Getting more views of our reports (on our site or syndicated versions)
2.
Syndicating CQC data to support the market in providing information for the public
3.
Adapting to become a supplier of syndicated information
4.
Making CQC more transparent
5.
Improving the end to end publication process
6.
Developing & promoting our
“Please share your experience” offering
7.
Listening in to people's experience of care elsewhere
8.
Doing better in Google search results
9.
Improving our Twitter, Facebook & email engagement
10.
Delivering Provider Profile 2
11.
Delivering the HealthWatch England website
12.
Delivering a roadmap of new website features
13.
Working internally to promote consistent design & comms standards across all digital products

CQC will start to actively support the rapidly growing market in providing information aimed at helping the public choose the best places to get care.
We believe that the public benefit from this market and we want to ensure that CQC information is a prominent component of what people see when they are researching their care on any of these sites.
We will seed this market by making our valuable, comprehensive and accurate directory of providers available free to anyone with the condition that CQC is credited and linked through to.
This arrangement will result in the public getting better access to CQC information across the web as well as making it easier for the market to develop new ways of providing all kinds of useful information for people who are researching care.

A current example of a website using CQC ’s directory – and linking back to CQC ’s reports http://www.goodcareguide.co.uk/provider/the-grange-care-centre-ub12qw/?referrer=search
The CQC widget – about to be piloted with providers, who will able to embed summary CQC information onto their own websites

The “Please share your experience” feature has been on the CQC website since its relaunch in
Oct 2011. We currently receive a comparatively small number of responses per month (about 450) which feed into CRM & the QRP.
Engaging the public to help CQC monitor the places where they receive care is vital to CQC’s overall strategy and we will continue to develop this feature and promote it in conjunction with the public comms team. Part of the promotion of this feature needs to be communicating success stories of improvement resulting from the public telling CQC what they have seen.
We also note that Ofsted are now offering a “trip advisor” feature on their website. Although we have no current plans to do similar, we will keep an open mind on this.
In the Provider Profile 2 development we will make the “Please tell us your experience” feature more prominent and look at whether the page designs should give equal emphasis to “Our reports” and “Your view”.
We will look at ways of telling people summary information about what we are receiving (that may in itself encourage other people to send information) eg – “38 people have sent us feedback on this service”.
We will work with Intelligence, Data management and NCSC to ensure that we can deal with greater volumes of public feedback.

The Your Experience form launched when the new website went live on 19 October 2011.
In the first four months, 1,521 forms were completed, with around half of these raising urgent concerns.
An update to the form went live when the R&RA and Patients Association pilots launched on 12 March. This means urgent concerns are now being sent directly to the
Safeguarding team.
Benefits
Prominence: The ability to have your say on services you use is now one of the key messages given to visitors to our website.
Easy to find : the form is at the centre of every location profile page – more than 10,000 are viewed each day.
Reduction in calls: NCSC have seen a significant reduction in web queries since launch while receiving more feedback.
Structured feedback: The information we receive is now tied to a location, easily passed to an inspector and suitable for QRP.

April 2012 – October 2012
Agenda Item: 13
Paper no: CM/02/12/12

This Media Strategy for April
– October 2012 sets out how the media team will seek to support CQC
’s organisational priorities and the achievement of its objectives. It:
– Assesses CQC’s current media profile, focussing on spikes of negative and positive coverage, analyses what we have learnt from these and the factors that have contributed to our current position.
– Identifies the four-stage journey along which we need to move public perception, via the media, toward recognition of the benefits and impact of our regulation; and maps actions against these stages.
– Outlines the programme of media activity for the next seven months.
It has interdependencies with and is aligned to other strategies (primarily the
Stakeholder and Parliamentary Strategy). Big ticket
’ items i.e.T5 registration have their own project-specific communication plans.
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Inherent risk
Scale and nature of our regulatory responsibilities; measured by scale and likelihood of harm, we regulate the UK’s most high-risk industry - far larger and more complex than UK aviation industry.
Acquired risk :
At the outset, CQC positioned itself as an improvement agency. We over-estimated what we could deliver – and have spent the last four years trying to climb down from this position and to sell a less palatable, more complex message to a public who understand us to be responsible for improving services.
Bringing together three legacy organisations resulted in redundancies and low staff morale, with some staff expressing their dissatisfaction publically.
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Growing tendency in the media to view CQC as ‘set up to fail’ – our remit is too large, our resources too stretched, our funding inadequate.
While this is preferable to a view that failures to spot poor care are due to inefficiency, it ’s still precarious positioning. The truth is that even if our resources were doubled, we would still not be able to identify and prevent all poor care.
This is what we need to communicate, and which we can only do by fundamentally changing expectations of what regulation can – and should be expected to – achieve.
Changing perception takes time – and changing perception from a position of weakness takes even longer. We need be realistic about what we can achieve and by when – especially given a year ahead that includes Mid Staffs.
Until we can demonstrate that we take swift, decisive action supported by a robust evidence base, we will struggle to achieve any sustained improvement in our media profile.
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In order to tell a convincing story which describes an effective organisation, we need:
The right evidence – timely inspection reports describing consistent judgements on compliance in a way which is meaningful to the public and providers.
The right action – transparent, proportionate enforcement action that utilises the full range of our powers.
The right information – robust data and management information that allows us to speak with authority on the sectors we regulate.
The right level of influence – among key stakeholders, policy makers, opinion formers.
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55
55
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62
460 460
1142 1142
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Demonstrate effectiveness
Clarify our role
Build advocacy
Drive the debate
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How do we get there?
Use State of Care and accompanying market reports as evidence base to demonstrate scale and impact of our work, allowing us to tell a clear story on:
- numbers of inspections;
- number and location of non-compliant providers;
- key themes of non-compliance; and
- how many have gone from non-compliance to compliance / closure (ASC).
Hold press briefing to accompany every quarterly report. Establish as a key event in the health and social care calendar - most comprehensive update available on performance across the health and social care sectors and what the impact of regulation is.
Use national and regional coverage of themed inspection programmes . We know this model - unannounced inspections highlighting failings at individual providers with a national report summarising findings – resonates with public expectations of CQC.
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How do we get there?
To build on the success of DANI 1
– and ensure that front pages translate into
‘reputation capital’ for CQC – we should:
Ensure every themed inspection programme identifies national case studies, including stories of service users, experts by experience, support from clinical experts;
Hold a press conference for every themed inspection national report;
Issue local press notices for every single piece of non-compliance found through themed inspections including all the numbers about the national programme, and to pursue these with local media
– supported by rigorous follow-up by Ops;
Support themed inspections through Twitter campaign nationally and regionally; and
Where possible, identify improvement narratives - where providers have returned to compliance - as well those where further action has been necessary.
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How do we get there?
In order to be clear about what space we don
’t occupy, we need to demonstrate our effectiveness before we can clarify our role through unambiguous messaging about the limits of regulation in a way that is not construed as
‘buckpassing
’.
Use all our media work - and SoC and themed reviews in particular - as vehicles for this messaging:
1. Primary responsibility for providing safe and good quality care rests with providers
– not with the regulator. Clear directive from DH Capability and Performance Review:
“On one key point…it is important to be clear; the responsibility to comply with essential standards of safety and quality rests squarely with the provider organisation
– be it a hospital, a care home or another type of provider. CQC’s role is to inspect, to verify and to enforce when necessary.
”
2. We are not an improvement agency. While our regulation can have the effect of driving improvement, our focus is on identifying poor care and prompting action in response to this.
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How do we get there?
Use stakeholder voices as media spokespeople to emphasise that we are not the only body with responsibility for underperformance - in particular, professional regulators, who can operate in more of an improvement space than we can.
Use BHRT 6 month review and subsequent policy piece to pose questions about how realistic radical enforcement is in relation to a maternity unit – and what other levers are available. How can the regulator influence the broader system?
Ongoing programme of media briefings:
– Meetings with national health and social affairs correspondents
(with repeat meetings in September to evaluate progress).
– Briefings between CQC staff and key broadcast production teams (starting with Today programme.)
– Trade press briefings with national clinical advisors
– RCM contact programme with key regional journalists
– ‘Press breakfast’ for key national correspondents to seek their views on CQC – what we do well or poorly.
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How do we get there?
Write to every key stakeholder with a summary of every themed inspection
Ensure stakeholder/advisory groups are engaged in themed inspections from the outset
– not as an afterthought.
Flag to relevant stakeholders in advance if we are aware that a negative report/issue is due to hit the media
– they are more likely to respond in a considered manner if forewarned.
Ensure that when we publish consultation responses, we are as transparent as possible about responses received - and if these have not been reflected, why not.
Use SoC and market reports to increase engagement with MPs on a constituency basis using regionally-focused data.
Communicate what we do to HSC and PAC better.
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How do we get there?
Use State of Care, accompanying market reports and national reports on thematic reviews to capitalise on our access to uniquely detailed sector/provider information in order to position CQC as an authoritative voice by:
Identifying emerging trends, risks and sector challenges - enabling us to predict, rather than just react to, service/market failure.
Using our information to help stakeholders and policy makers develop a meaningful policy response.
Including comment on our findings from key sector stakeholders reflecting on our findings, what they say about the emerging challenges for each sector
– and what need to happen to effect change.
Using academic partnership/advisory group input to add additional dimension to national reports and ensuring that these move beyond identifying poor care to ‘call for action
’.
Develop clear positioning for Chair and Chief Executive - define a distinct but complementary 'space' for each to occupy and from which they can promote agreed narratives externally.
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Track sentiment; reach; message pick-up via quarterly media analysis
Incorporate media-specific element of public perception audit into impact analysis
Engage Stakeholder Committee in qualitative testing on media perceptions of regulation
Actively building questions about media perception into Mori survey
Test with stakeholder reference group - annual survey - i.e. based on this year's coverage, which of the following statements about the CQC do you agree with?
Repeat current programme of meetings with health and social affairs correspondents in September for an informal ‘pulse check’ – do they believe we are doing a better job of explaining what we do? (key criticism currently)
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