CQC Compliance Quality Assurance
Care & Client Management

The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) is responsible for monitoring and inspecting the availability and quality of health and social services in Northern Ireland, and encouraging quality improvements in the services for which it is responsible. The RQIA was established in 2005, as a non-departmental public body of the DHSSPS, as a result of The Health and Personal Social Services (Quality, Improvement and Regulation) (Northern Ireland) Order 2003. The Order created the enabling legal framework or raising the quality of health and social care services in Northern Ireland, and extended regulation and quality improvement to a wider range of services. From April 2009, under the Health and Social (Reform) Bill, RQIA will also undertake the functions previously carried out by of the Mental Health Commission. The Board and staff are completely independent of health and social services. Board members cannot be appointed if they continue to have links with health and social services organisations.

The Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) base their inspections on a set of minimum standards which are intended to ensure that both those using and those providing services are clear about the quality of service which is expected. RQIA inspectors visit, nursing and residential homes, independent hospitals and clinics, and nursing agencies, in order to examine all aspects of the services provide to assure users that they can have confidence in the services.

The RQIA’s web site states its main functions as

• "to inspect the quality of services provided by Health and Social Care Services (HSC) bodies in Northern Ireland through reviews of clinical and social care governance arrangements within these bodies;
• To regulate (register and inspect) a wide range of services delivered by HSC bodies and by the independent sector. The regulation of services is based on new minimum care standards to ensure that service users know what quality of services they can expect to receive, and service providers have a benchmark against which to measure their quality; and
• With the transfer of duties of the Mental Health Commission to RQIA under the Health and Social Care (Reform) Act (NI) 2009, we undertake a range of responsibilities for people with a mental illness and those with a learning disability. These include: preventing ill treatment; remedying any deficiency in care or treatment; terminating improper detention in a hospital or guardianship; and preventing or redressing loss or damage to a patient's property."