CQC Single Assessment Framework: A Practical Guide for Care Providers
What has changed from the KLOEs, how the 34 Quality Statements work, and the six evidence categories inspectors now use to reach a rating.
The Care Quality Commission's Single Assessment Framework (SAF) replaces the previous approach of separate frameworks for providers, local authorities and integrated care systems. It is designed to give one consistent view of quality across every regulated service in England, whether you run a single home care service or a large group of care homes.
For providers, the practical impact is significant. Inspection reports look different, ratings are updated more often, and CQC now expects a continuous flow of evidence rather than a snapshot at inspection. This guide explains the change from KLOEs to Quality Statements, walks through the six evidence categories, and sets out practical steps you can take to get ready.
From KLOEs to Quality Statements
Under the old framework, providers were assessed against Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) and a long list of prompts within each of the five key questions: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. In practice, this often felt like a checklist that inspectors worked through at a scheduled inspection.
The Single Assessment Framework keeps the five key questions but replaces the KLOEs with 34 Quality Statements. Each statement is written as a short commitment from the point of view of the provider (for example, "We work with people to understand what being safe means to them"). Inspectors judge how well your service delivers that commitment based on evidence gathered continuously, not only during a site visit.
The rating scale (Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate) is unchanged, but CQC now scores each Quality Statement on a four-point scale, aggregates those scores at the key-question level, and can update ratings between formal inspections when new evidence comes in.
The five key questions, broken down
The 34 Quality Statements sit under the five familiar key questions. Together they describe what a high-quality, person-centred service looks like in practice.
Safe
- Learning culture
- Safe systems, pathways and transitions
- Safeguarding
- Involving people to manage risks
- Safe environments
- Safe and effective staffing
- Infection prevention and control
- Medicines optimisation
Effective
- Assessing needs
- Delivering evidence-based care and treatment
- How staff, teams and services work together
- Supporting people to live healthier lives
- Monitoring and improving outcomes
- Consent to care and treatment
Caring
- Kindness, compassion and dignity
- Treating people as individuals
- Independence, choice and control
- Responding to people's immediate needs
- Workforce wellbeing and enablement
Responsive
- Person-centred care
- Care provision, integration and continuity
- Providing information
- Listening to and involving people
- Equity in access
- Equity in experiences and outcomes
- Planning for the future
Well-led
- Shared direction and culture
- Capable, compassionate and inclusive leaders
- Freedom to speak up
- Workforce equality, diversity and inclusion
- Governance, management and sustainability
- Partnerships and communities
- Learning, improvement and innovation
- Environmental sustainability
The six evidence categories
For every Quality Statement, CQC looks for evidence across six categories. Not every category applies to every statement, but strong services can point to a rounded picture across most of them.
People's experience
Direct feedback from people using your service, their families and advocates. Surveys, comment cards, meetings and conversations all count.
Feedback from staff and leaders
What your team tells CQC about culture, leadership, training and how safe they feel to raise concerns.
Feedback from partners
Views from commissioners, local authorities, GPs, district nurses and other professionals who work with your service.
Observation
What inspectors see during a site visit: interactions, environment, mealtimes, medicines rounds and daily routines.
Processes
Your policies, audits, governance systems and how well they are followed in practice.
Outcomes
The measurable impact on people: wellbeing, independence, safety incidents, complaints, hospital admissions and more.
How scoring and ratings work
Inspectors score each relevant evidence category from 1 to 4 (1 = evidence shows significant shortfalls; 4 = evidence shows an exceptional standard). Those scores combine to give a Quality Statement score, then a key-question score, and finally an overall rating.
Because CQC can gather evidence at any time, a rating can be updated without a full on-site inspection. That is why ongoing governance and a consistent flow of evidence matter far more than a last-minute push before an inspection date.
Implementation steps for care managers
- Map your current evidence to the 34 Quality Statements. Take each statement in turn and note where the evidence lives: care plans, audits, meeting minutes, surveys, training records, incident logs. Gaps tell you where to focus first.
- Refresh your quality assurance calendar. Move from ad hoc audits to a rolling schedule that covers medicines, care planning, safeguarding, infection control, recruitment and governance across the year.
- Build feedback into everyday practice. Short, regular conversations with people using the service, families, staff and visiting professionals give you the "people's experience" and "feedback from partners" evidence CQC now expects.
- Strengthen your governance meetings. Bring audit results, complaints, incidents, safeguarding, training compliance and staff feedback together in one place. Record what you learned and what changed as a result.
- Update your Provider Information Return (PIR). Under the SAF, the PIR is one of the key opportunities to tell CQC how you meet each Quality Statement. Keep supporting evidence ready to submit alongside it.
- Train the team in the new language. Registered Managers, deputies and senior staff should be confident talking about Quality Statements and evidence categories, not just KLOEs.
- Rehearse with a mock inspection. A structured mock inspection against the Single Assessment Framework highlights where evidence is strong, where it is thin and how your team communicates with inspectors.
Where providers often go wrong
- Treating the SAF as a rebrand of the KLOEs rather than a genuine shift to continuous, evidence-led assessment.
- Focusing on process evidence (policies and audits) while under-investing in people's experience and outcomes.
- Waiting for an inspection window before pulling evidence together, rather than keeping it inspection-ready year-round.
- Weak governance meetings that record discussion but not decisions, actions or measurable improvement.
- Registered Managers carrying the framework on their own, without engaging the wider team in the change.
Practical support with the Single Assessment Framework
We work with providers across the UK to embed the Single Assessment Framework into day-to-day practice, remotely and on site.
- CQC Compliance Audits & Governance Oversight mapped against the 34 Quality Statements.
- Mock CQC Inspections run in line with the current framework.
- PIR support to make the most of your Provider Information Return.
- Online Manager Mentoring for Registered Managers leading the change.
- Ongoing Compliance & QA Support to keep evidence flowing throughout the year.
Not sure where your service stands against the Single Assessment Framework?
Book a free, no-obligation consultation with Rachel Bedford. We will talk through your service, the Quality Statements that matter most for you, and the fastest path to inspection-ready evidence.