The 2026 CQC framework, explained.And every KLOE mapped to the evidence that proves it.
CQC is replacing the Single Assessment Framework. This is the plain-English guide to what's changing, when, and what the 24 Key Lines of Enquiry will expect of a care service — with each one mapped to the record FlexiEle already keeps for you.
Last updated 16 May 2026 · Based on CQC's draft Adult Social Care Assessment Framework, version 9.
Where the 2026 framework stands today
CQC published the draft Adult Social Care Assessment Framework (version 9) on 19 March 2026. The feedback period on it closes at 5pm on 12 June 2026. Pilots run over the summer; a refined, final framework is expected later in 2026; CQC expects to begin assessing against it from the end of 2026. In practice, most providers will have their first inspection under the new framework during 2027.
Until then, the Single Assessment Framework and its 34 Quality Statements remain in force — any inspection between now and go-live is still under the SAF. 2026 is a transition year, not a cliff edge, and FlexiEle maps your evidence to both frameworks while they overlap.
The Single Assessment Framework is being replaced.
Here's what that means.
In 2023, CQC introduced the Single Assessment Framework — one model for hospitals, GPs and care services alike, with 34 Quality Statements and a numerical scoring model behind every rating. It didn't land well: an independent review by Dr Penny Dash found CQC had lost credibility with the sector, that the framework was far too complex, and that the scoring obscured more than it revealed.
The 2026 reform is the answer. CQC is replacing the single model with four sector-specific frameworks. The one for adult social care keeps the five Key Questions — Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive, Well-led — and the four ratings. Underneath, three things change:
- The 34 Quality Statements become 24 Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) — written specifically for adult social care.
- The numerical scoring model is removed. Inspectors weigh the evidence "in the round" against published descriptors.
- Those descriptors — the rating characteristics — are published for every KLOE. For the first time, you can read in CQC's own words what Good and Outstanding look like.
The five Key Questions, and the 24 KLOEs beneath them.
Safe
7 KLOEs"You are protected from abuse and avoidable harm."
- Safety culture
- Managing risks during care & treatment
- Safe systems, pathways & transitions
- Safeguarding
- Safe environments & infection control
- Safe staffing
- Safe medicines & treatments
Effective
4 KLOEs"Your care, treatment and support achieves good outcomes, helps you to maintain quality of life and is based on the best available evidence."
- Assessing needs
- Evidence-based care & equitable outcomes
- Supporting people to live healthier lives
- Consent to care & treatment
Caring
3 KLOEs"Staff involve and treat you with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect."
- Kindness, compassion & dignity
- Person-centred care
- Independence, choice & control
Responsive
4 KLOEs"Services are organised so that they meet your needs."
- Care provision, integration & continuity
- Listening & responding to feedback
- Timely & equitable access
- Equity in experiences
Well-led
6 KLOEs"The leadership, management and governance of the organisation make sure it's providing high-quality care that's based around your individual needs, that it encourages learning and innovation, and that it promotes an open and fair culture."
- Strategic direction
- Workforce equity & culture
- Capable & compassionate leaders
- Governance & management
- Partnerships & communities
- Improvement, innovation & learning
All 24 KLOEs, and the evidence that satisfies each one.
Safe
7 KLOEsKLOE 1Safety culture
"Is there a positive and equitable safety culture where risks are proactively managed, concerns are listened to, incidents are thoroughly investigated, and lessons are learned to improve care?"
Safe culture, raising safety concerns, closed cultures and the duty of candour.
An immutable audit trail; the incident and duty-of-candour workflow with the learning loop closed; an anonymous speaking-up channel.
KLOE 2Managing risks during care and treatment
"Are risks to each person monitored and managed so that their care and treatment is safe and supportive?"
Risk, deterioration and emergencies; positive risk-taking; restrictive practice.
A live risk register on the care plan; MUST / Waterlow / NEWS2 scored and trended; restrictive-practice and MCA/DoLS recording; deterioration alerts.
KLOE 3Safe systems, pathways and transitions
"Are there systems to enable collaborative working across care pathways and services, to ensure that safety and continuity of care are prioritised?"
Care co-ordination and information sharing; continuity and transitions of care; referrals; delegation.
One shared record across the team; GP Connect-ready; structured handover and transfer records; referral tracking.
KLOE 4Safeguarding
"Does the service work with partners and people to protect their rights to live in safety and be free from abuse and improper treatment?"
Safeguarding and human rights; deprivation of liberty; bullying, harassment and discrimination; sexual safety.
A safeguarding workflow that auto-routes concerns to the right people; DoLS recording; an immutable, time-stamped concern trail.
KLOE 5Safe environments and infection prevention and control
"Are potential risks within the care environment detected and managed appropriately to enable safe delivery of care for people and staff?"
Premises (gas, electrical, fire safety); equipment; infection prevention and control; environmental risks such as heatwaves and flooding; digital systems and technology assurance.
Premises and equipment checks; IPC records; the risk register for environmental risks; and — for digital-systems assurance — our DSPT evidence and DCB0160 deployment pack.
KLOE 6Safe staffing
"Are there enough qualified, skilled and experienced staff who receive adequate support, supervision and development to keep people safe and meet their needs?"
Workforce capacity; safe recruitment and DBS; staffing levels and skills mix; revalidation; supervision; performance; people in positions of trust.
The workforce module — DBS tracking, the training matrix and revalidation, supervision, the care-intensity rota, and sponsor-licence checks for people in positions of trust.
KLOE 7Safe medicines and treatments
"Are medicines and treatments safe and delivered in a timely way, in line with people's needs and preferences?"
Roles and delegation; self-medication; safe administration; consent and covert administration under the MCA; controlled drugs; antimicrobial stewardship; STOMP/STAMP.
The eMAR — prompt/assist/administer, a controlled-drug register, covert administration recorded against the MCA, and STOMP/STAMP and antimicrobial-stewardship pattern detection.
Effective
4 KLOEsKLOE 1Assessing needs
"Are people's needs holistically assessed and reviewed with them to maximise the effectiveness of their care, support and treatment?"
Holistic and accessible assessment; a person-centred approach; care planning; assessment tools.
PRSB-conformant care plans with About Me; native, scored assessment tools; automatic review cycles before a plan goes out of date.
KLOE 2Evidence-based care and equitable outcomes
"Is care, support and treatment delivered in line with legislation, evidence-based standards and good practice, to achieve equitable and good outcomes?"
Good-practice guidance and standards; equitable outcomes; monitoring and improving individual outcomes; nutrition and hydration.
Care plans built on recognised guidance; outcome tracking and trends; nutrition, hydration and fluid monitoring.
KLOE 3Supporting people to live healthier lives
"Are people encouraged and supported to manage their own health and wellbeing?"
Deterioration and prevention; supporting access to healthcare — GP, dentist, speech and language therapy, dietetics; healthier-lives promotion; hot and cold-weather risk.
Health-action and appointment tracking; a healthcare-access log; wellbeing goals on the care plan; seasonal-risk prompts.
KLOE 4Consent to care and treatment
"Are people supported to understand and exercise their right to consent to care, support and treatment?"
Consent; advocacy and support; communicating rights; the Mental Capacity Act 2005.
Consent recording; capacity assessments and best-interest decisions; DoLS tracking; advocacy details held on the record.
Caring
3 KLOEsKLOE 1Kindness, compassion and dignity
"Are people treated with kindness, empathy, compassion and respect, and is their privacy and dignity maintained?"
Dignity, respect and privacy; confidentiality; communication; emotional wellbeing; anticipating need.
Daily notes that capture the person, not just the task; dignity and wellbeing fields in the daily record; role-based access protecting confidentiality.
KLOE 2Person-centred care
"Do people receive personalised care, which ensures they are at the centre of their care, support and treatment choices?"
Personalised care; empowerment and decision-making; meeting personal, cultural, social, spiritual and religious needs.
About Me and personalised care plans; preferences and cultural and spiritual needs surfaced to carers at the point of care.
KLOE 3Independence, choice and control
"Are people supported and empowered to maintain their independence, relationships, and choice over their care and plans for the future?"
Communication and lifestyle choice; access to family and community; relationships; activities; DNACPR/ReSPECT and advance decisions; end-of-life care.
Goals and activities tracking; the family portal; native ReSPECT and DNACPR recording; end-of-life care plans.
Responsive
4 KLOEsKLOE 1Care provision, integration and continuity
"Is care co-ordinated and delivered in a flexible, joined-up way that reflects diverse needs and promotes choice and continuity?"
Collaborative and flexible working; provision of services; continuity of care.
Continuity scoring built into the rota; one shared record across the team; flexible care-plan provision.
KLOE 2Listening to and responding to feedback
"Are people supported to give feedback and raise concerns, and are they confident that action will be taken as a result?"
Feedback and complaints; access to advocacy; unpaid carer support.
A complaints and feedback workflow with action tracking and closed-loop evidence; the family-portal feedback channel; a "you said, we did" trail.
KLOE 3Timely and equitable access
"Does the service ensure that everyone can access equitable and timely care, support and treatment?"
Access to services; accessible premises and equipment; reasonable adjustments and communication needs; digital exclusion.
Visit verification and timeliness reporting; reasonable-adjustment flags on the record; accessible family updates.
KLOE 4Equity in experiences
"Does the service tailor people's care, support and treatment effectively, to ensure equity in experiences?"
Barriers experienced during care; inequalities in experience; reasonable adjustments; equality and human-rights duties; experiences of seldom-heard groups; translation and interpreting.
Equity reporting by protected characteristic, language and region; a multi-language family portal; reasonable-adjustment recording.
Well-led
6 KLOEsKLOE 1Strategic direction
"Is there a clear vision and strategy to support the current and future needs of people and promote a positive culture?"
Strategy and vision; values and culture; service sustainability; staff feedback.
Agency-cost, occupancy and retention dashboards that evidence the operational sustainability of the service; staff-feedback capture.
KLOE 2Workforce equity and culture
"Is there an inclusive and compassionate culture that values diversity, supports staff wellbeing and speaking up, and tackles workforce inequalities?"
Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion; workplace discrimination; speaking-up culture; whistleblowing; staff wellbeing.
Workforce demographic analytics; an anonymous speaking-up and whistleblowing channel with case management.
KLOE 3Capable and compassionate leaders
"Do leaders at all levels have the capability and experience to lead effectively and deliver high-quality care, with accountability, integrity and empathy?"
Leadership competency and development; safe recruitment of leaders and the Fit and Proper Person Requirement; role accountability.
A leadership-recruitment and FPPR evidence pack; supervision and development records for leaders.
KLOE 4Governance and management
"Are there clear roles, responsibilities and systems of accountability to support good governance and manage risks, performance and issues?"
Roles and accountability; governance and quality assurance; risk management; cyber security and the DSPT; GDPR; statutory requirements; workforce planning; digital records; business continuity.
The most software-relevant KLOE in the framework — the immutable audit trail, automatic DSPT evidence, role-based access logs, Regulation 18 notification tracking and workforce planning all live here.
KLOE 5Partnerships and communities
"Is the service working effectively and collaboratively with people who use the service and partners to support care provision and service development?"
Sharing good practice and learning; partnership working; involvement and coproduction.
The family portal and feedback loops as coproduction evidence; records shared with partners.
KLOE 6Improvement, innovation and learning
"Does the service enable and embed continuous improvement, innovation and learning, using evidence and lived experience?"
Innovation; learning and improvement; research.
The incident-learning loop and improvement trail; anonymised data and opt-in research participation.
Every KLOE in full — the verbatim inspector question, the complete scope CQC assesses, and the evidence behind each one — is on the all 24 KLOEs reference.
For the first time, CQC has written down what each rating looks like.
Under the old scoring model, a rating was a sum you couldn't see inside. The 2026 framework publishes rating characteristics — plain descriptions of Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate — for every KLOE. An inspector now weighs your evidence against these descriptions. So can you, before they ever arrive.
A quick check: how ready are you?
Eight honest questions
Work down the list. Every "no" is a gap worth closing before an inspector finds it.
- Can you show, today, where your evidence sits against each of the 24 KLOEs?
- If an inspector asked for your Safe KLOE 7 (medicines) evidence, could you produce it in minutes?
- Is every incident investigated, with the learning loop closed and recorded?
- Are your care plans reviewed before they go out of date — automatically?
- Can you evidence supervision, training and DBS for every member of staff?
- Is your DSPT evidence pack built from live data, or assembled by hand each year?
- Could you show how families are kept informed, and how their feedback was acted on?
- Do you know which of your evidence maps to the new KLOEs, and which needs re-mapping?
Three KLOEs where FlexiEle does the heavy lifting.
Governance and management
The framework writes cyber security, the DSPT, GDPR, digital records, workforce planning and business continuity into one KLOE's scope. FlexiEle is the digital record — immutable audit trail, automatic DSPT evidence, role-based access logs. It is a KLOE many care-record-only products have little to say about.
Our security & governanceSafe staffing
This KLOE's scope reads like a workforce module's contents: DBS, revalidation, supervision, performance, and "people in positions of trust" — where sponsor-licence evidence is checked. Built on a proven HRMS, FlexiEle keeps the staffing side and the care side in one record.
Workforce & sponsor licenceSafe medicines and treatments
The framework names antimicrobial stewardship and STOMP/STAMP as explicit scope — new ground most eMAR products don't address. FlexiEle's eMAR surfaces those prescribing patterns and records covert administration against the Mental Capacity Act. It removes the conditions that cause medication errors.
Inside the eMARInspection evidence shouldn't be a week of panic.
Most providers assemble their inspection evidence the way they always have: a scramble through paper MARs, training spreadsheets, supervision notes and complaint folders the week before. FlexiEle does it the other way round. Evidence is captured as care is delivered and tagged to the relevant KLOE the moment it's recorded — so the inspection pack is never built, it is simply always there.
- A live KLOE dashboard. See, today, how much evidence you hold against each of the 24 KLOEs — and where the gaps are.
- The KLOE readiness view. CQC's published rating characteristics, held next to your own evidence, across all five Key Questions.
- The one-click inspection pack. When an inspector confirms a visit, the evidence is already assembled and already filed against the right KLOE.
The 2026 framework — frequently asked.
What is replacing the CQC Single Assessment Framework?
For adult social care, a dedicated 2026 Adult Social Care Assessment Framework. It keeps the five Key Questions but replaces the 34 Quality Statements with 24 Key Lines of Enquiry and a set of published rating characteristics. CQC is producing separate frameworks for other sectors too.
What are the 24 KLOEs?
The 24 Key Lines of Enquiry in the draft 2026 framework, grouped under the five Key Questions: Safe (7), Effective (4), Caring (3), Responsive (4) and Well-led (6). Each has a plain inspector question, a defined scope, and rating characteristics.
What does KLOE stand for?
Key Line of Enquiry — a structured question an inspector uses to assess one area of a service. KLOEs were central to CQC's inspection approach until the Single Assessment Framework replaced them in 2023; the 2026 framework brings the term back, rewritten for adult social care.
When does the 2026 CQC framework come into force?
CQC published the draft for feedback in March 2026. The consultation closes on 12 June 2026, with pilots over the summer and a final version later in the year. CQC expects to assess against it from the end of 2026; most providers' first inspection under it will be during 2027.
Is the Single Assessment Framework still being used?
Yes. The SAF and its 34 Quality Statements remain in force throughout 2026. Any inspection before the new framework goes live is still under the SAF.
What is the difference between the 34 Quality Statements and the 24 KLOEs?
The Quality Statements were "we" and "I" statements, scored individually to build a rating. The KLOEs are direct inspector questions, specific to adult social care, judged against published rating characteristics rather than a numerical score. About 10 of the 24 map closely to an existing Quality Statement; the rest are new or reframed.
What are rating characteristics?
CQC's published descriptions of what Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate look like for each KLOE. They replace the old scoring model: an inspector weighs the evidence against these descriptions and makes a judgement.
What happens to my current CQC rating?
It does not expire when the framework changes. A service rated Good keeps that rating until its next inspection.
Do I need to prepare differently for the new framework?
The main job is re-mapping your evidence — it doesn't all carry across one-for-one — and getting ready for newly explicit areas such as digital systems and cyber security, antimicrobial stewardship, and workforce equity.
Take the whole framework with you.
The 2026 CQC Readiness Guide is the long-form version of this page — all 24 KLOEs, the rating characteristics, the 34 → 24 transition table and a readiness checklist. Or see it on your own service: book a 20-minute demo and we'll walk through your KLOE evidence map, with no slides and no pressure.
A note on using this page
This page is free to use and free to share — whether or not you ever talk to us. We keep it current: it's updated at each milestone in CQC's framework consultation, and the date at the top tells you when it was last checked.