The NHS’s main regulator the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is letting down the public with too wide a remit and too little capacity, MPs have been told.

The government, however, has defended the regulator saying that, despite problems in its performance since becoming operational in 2009, it is fit for purpose and the new system for regulation will not be fully embedded until 2014.

MPs on the parliamentary public accounts committee held an evidence session on 25 January for their inquiry based on a report by spending watchdog the National Audit Office about the commission, published last December (BMJ 2011; 343:d7873, doi:10.1136/bmj.d7873).

That report concluded that the commission had not so far achieved value for money …