Last Updated on October 21, 2025

Following a public consultation last year, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has outlined the fees that providers will pay from April 2016. The CQC fee increases have not been well-received by the sector.

CQC’s regulatory functions are funded both by fees paid by providers and by grant-in-aid from the Department of Health. Government policy requires CQC to increase the fees it has to charge registered providers, so that it can move towards fully recovering the chargeable costs of regulating health and adult social care. In its consultation, CQC outlined proposals to achieve full chargeable cost recovery for all of the sectors it regulates over a period of either two or four years.

The responses CQC received expressed a strong preference for the four-year option. However, following the Government’s Spending Review, the level of grant-in-aid available to CQC for 2016/17 is such that in order to fulfil its statutory functions, CQC has had to recommend the two-year option to the Secretary of State, except for dental and homecare providers. The Secretary of State has consented to these recommendations.

The amounts that CQC will charge to providers differ depending on the cost of regulation in each sector and how close they are currently to full cost recovery. Examples of the impact of fee changes on some of the sectors include:

• £451 increase for a care home with 26 to 30 residents.
• £573 increase for a single-location community social care provider (such as a homecare agency).
• £58,656 increase for an NHS trust with an income of £125m to £225m.
• £1,849 increase for a single-location GP practice with 5,001 to 10,000 patients.

The two sectors furthest from full chargeable cost recovery are NHS GPs and the community social care sector (such as homecare agencies).

• Homecare agencies will be subject to fee changes on the basis of the four-year trajectory towards full cost recovery.
• The Government has recently announced additional funding for GP practices to cover the expense of the required increases to fees in 2016/17.

Responding to the CQC fee increases, VODG Chief Executive, Professor Rhidian Hughes said, ‘Alongside CQC’s strategy consultation this latest announcement does little to strengthen the regulator’s commitment to efficiency and cost control. The sector cannot withstand further financial pressures, and the fee increase represents a very significant additional burden on services.

‘The outcome of CQC’s statutory consultation seems to have been ignored and the announcement comes just days before the new fees come into force. This is no way to regulate the sector.’

Nadra Ahmed OBE, Chairman of National Care Association said, ‘Our members have been eagerly awaiting this announcement hoping that their comments in the consultation would have been heeded, but once again we remain disappointed that the CQC has pursued its own agenda. Rewarding the Regulator with such substantial increases flies in the face of outcome-based results.’

CQC has published a calculator on its website to help providers work out their exact fees for 2016/17, alongside detailed fees guidance. The calculator is available here. It will be publishing its response to the consultation and other supporting documents on Wednesday 6th April. Further information about CQC's fees strategy for 2016/17 is available on the CQC website here.