 A small orange flag pin, against a blue background. We're making improvements to our internal finance systems next month, subject to successful completion of testing and ensuring were ready for the change. This means you will soon be able to contact us directly about paying your fee by emailing our Contact Centre. They will resolve your queries or put you directly in touch with our Finance team on your payment-related queries. We will share the new email address with you from 10 June, subject to all checks being completed. You will also be able to see more detailed information on your invoice. If you have notgot a direct debit in place, you can contact our Finance team atdirect.debit@cqc.org.uk, quoting your provider ID to set one up. For alternative modes of payment and more information, please refer back to an email sent earlier this month -read the full message.  An open notebook resting on top of an open laptop, with a pair of reading glasses and a pen sat on the blank pages. The Government has introduced regulations torestrict the prescribing and supply of puberty suppressing hormones, known as puberty blockers, to children and young people under 18 in England, Wales and Scotland. The emergency ban will last from 3 June 2024 to 3 September 2024, and will apply to prescriptions written by UK private prescribers and prescribers registered in the European Economic Area (EEA), or Switzerland. During this period, no new patients experiencing gender dysphoria/incongruence under the age of 18 will be prescribed these medicines for the purposes of puberty suppression. In addition, the Government has also introduced indefinite restrictions to the prescribing of these medicines within NHS primary care in England, in line with NHS guidelines. Patients already established on these medicines by a UK prescriber for these purposes can continue to access them. They will also remain available for patients receiving the drugs for other uses, from a UK-registered prescriber.  On 13 May 2024, we deployed our new single assessment framework across the following non-rated services: - Primary dental services
- Sexual assault referral centres
- Children's homes
- Follow up and stand-alone assessments of health and justice services
- Hyperbaric oxygen therapy services
- Blood and transplant services
- Independent pathology laboratories
 A green speech bubble with three scrunched up yellow post-it notes in the middle, surrounded by blank yellow post-it notes. The Information Commissioners Office (ICO) haspublished new guidanceto support health and social care providers in ensuring that they keep people properly informed about how their personal information is being used and shared. Transparency and fairness are legal requirements under data protection laws. The ICO have alsopublished a reportto share lessons that can be learnt from common security mistakes and recently highlighted the need to ensure that peoples private information is properly protected witha statement highlighting concerns about information breaches relating to people living with HIV. The statement includes helpful advice for HIV services that is applicable to all organisations handling confidential health and social care information. CQC have a memorandum of understanding with the ICO and may work with them where we have serious concerns about the use or security of personal data. CQC has been carrying out project work to support innovation and improvement in medicines sustainability. We are currently inviting the submission of case studies from large and small medicine sustainability projects, across all sectors. These could be complete, in the planning stages or ongoing projects. Sharing your successes and the challenges along the way will help others to learn and develop their approaches to medicines sustainability. With your permission we may share your case study in our resource library. Please fill in the case study submission form here -
Anyone may register and consult with a GP without charge. This is regardless of nationality and residential status. Ex offenders also have the right to register with a GP of their choice. You can find out more about inclusive patient registration by reading our GP Mythbuster 61 - Patient registration. -
To mark annual mental health awareness week (13-19 May 2024) we published two new blogs from Chris Dzikiti, Interim Chief Inspector of Healthcare. In a joint blog Chris Dzikiti and Dr Jacqui Dyer, Mental Health Equalities Advisor at NHS England, talk about the work our two organisations are doing to implement the Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework (PCREF). In another blog we explore the results of the recently published Community mental health survey, focusing on new insights on child and adolescent mental health services.
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