Glossary
Care glossary
The jargon you meet when choosing care, explained without the jargon.
- CQC
- The Care Quality Commission, the body that inspects and rates health and adult social care in England.
- Provider
- The company, charity, partnership or person legally registered to run a service. One provider can run many locations.
- Location
- A single place where care is delivered, such as one care home or one GP surgery. Each has its own CQC registration.
- Regulated activity
- A type of care the CQC has to approve a provider to deliver, like personal care or treatment of disease.
- Service type
- The kind of service, such as a care home with nursing, a domiciliary (home care) agency or a dental service.
- Care home with nursing
- A care home where qualified nurses are on hand around the clock. Sometimes called a nursing home.
- Residential care home
- A care home that provides personal care and support but not on-site nursing.
- Domiciliary care
- Care delivered in someone's own home by visiting carers. Also called home care.
- Nominated individual
- A senior person responsible for supervising how a provider runs its services. We do not publish their name.
- Registered manager
- The person in day-to-day charge of a location's care. Again, we do not publish their name.
- Inherited rating
- A rating carried over from a previous registration, for example after a change of provider, until a fresh inspection happens.
- Single Assessment Framework
- The CQC's current approach to inspection, under which some locations are rated at service level rather than overall.
- Key question
- One of the five things the CQC judges: is a service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led.