The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has announced plans to release a handbook for all health and care providers under its watch.

This will be designed to help providers understand the CQC and how its inspections work.

One of the most frequent complaints from providers in recent years has been that the watchdog’s lack of communication has made it difficult to know what to expect come inspection day.

It also stated that it has pushed back plans to release details of the frequency of inspections moving forwards.

While the regulator had planned to release the information in July, it said that the Dash review had delayed this. An “interim statement” is now expected in August, with “more information” to follow in September.

The full message to providers who are registered with the CQC reads: “Earlier this year, we said that we intended to publish information in July about our expectations of the frequency of planned assessments, and an indication of a date by when we will have updated all ratings for all providers.

“Due to the publication of the interim findings of the Dash review, we will not be able to share this information as planned.

“The interim findings of the Dash review made clear recommendations for how we need to change how we work with you, and we have committed to making those changes.

“It is vital that information we share with you and the targets we set are realistic and achievable, and that we have involved providers, the public and our colleagues in our decision-making.

“We will publish an interim statement in August about how frequently we plan to assess each type of service. We will then publish more information on this in September.

“We have listened hard to providers in recent weeks, and so we are able to confirm our intention to work with providers, people who use services and our colleagues in the coming months to develop a new CQC handbook for all providers. We will work together to shape this.

“So far, we have heard that this handbook needs to explain what providers can expect from an inspection, what customer services standards you should expect from CQC, and how we can together reach a shared understanding of what ‘good’ looks like for different service types.

“Look out for more detail on this soon, including how you can get involved in this work.”

Underneath this new statement, the CQC added once again the recent longer post from interim chief executive Kate Terroni, in which she apologised for the CQC’s failures.

The CQC has also come under fire in recent weeks from health minister Wes Streeting, who called it ‘not fit for purpose’.

Meanwhile, commenting on the news of a new handbook, Jenny Wilde, partner at Acuity Law, said on LinkedIn: “There is no indication yet as to whether this information will be a repackage of what already stands or if the CQC intends to develop new service standards and expectations but this is an interesting start.”