Section 54(1) of the Care Act 2014 (c.23) (“the Act”) imposes a duty on the Care Quality Commission to determine whether a registered care provider satisfies the criteria for entry into the market oversight regime (see section 53 of the Act). These Regulations set out the entry criteria to the market oversight regime, which is a regime to monitor the financial sustainability of certain difficult to replace registered care providers.

Regulation 2 sets out the criteria for entry applicable to providers of personal (non-residential) care, that is, providers who are registered in respect of the carrying on of the regulated activity set out in paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 to the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (“the 2014 Regulations”). The criteria will be satisfied where a provider is not a local authority and where they:

• provide at least 30,000 hours of care in a week anywhere in England; or

• provide at least 2,000 people with care in a week anywhere in England; or

• provide at least 800 people with care in a week anywhere in England and the number of hours of care provided in the same week divided by that number of people exceeds 30.

Regulation 2 also provides that the criteria may be met by counting the hours of care provided by any group undertaking of the relevant provider or counting the people to whom care is provided by any such group undertaking.

Regulation 3 sets out the criteria for entry applicable to providers of residential care, that is, providers who are registered in respect of the carrying on of the regulated activity set out in paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 to the 2014 Regulations. The criteria will be satisfied where a provider is not a local authority and where they have a bed capacity:

• of at least 2,000 anywhere in England; or

• of between 1,000 to 1,999 overall, with 1 bed or more in at least 16 local authorities in England; or

• of between 1,000 to 1,999 anywhere in England and where their bed capacity in each of 3 or more local authorities in England exceeds 10 per cent. of the total bed capacity in each of those local authorities.

Regulation 3 also provides that the bed capacity of a provider includes the bed capacity of any group undertaking.

A separate impact assessment has not been prepared for these Regulations. These Regulations are part of a package of legislative measures and the relevant impact assessment can be requested via careactconsultation@dh.gsi.gov.uk or the Department of Health, Richmond House, 79 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2NS and is available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health .