CQC's Single Assessment Framework, Explained for Domiciliary Care

Since 2023, CQC has assessed every registered service — including domiciliary care agencies — using the Single Assessment Framework (SAF), which replaced the older Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) approach. The five Key Questions you may already know (Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive, Well-led) haven't gone away — SAF still organises everything under them. What's changed is what sits underneath.

Under each Key Question, CQC has defined a set of Quality Statements — 34 in total across the whole framework — short, plain-English descriptions of what good care looks like (for example, "We work effectively across teams and services to support people"). CQC does not always look at every quality statement in a single assessment.

Each Quality Statement is backed by defined Evidence Categories — the kinds of proof CQC will look for. These include people's direct experience of care (including CQC's own "Tell Us About Your Care" system), feedback from staff and leaders, direct observation, your internal processes, and the outcomes you can demonstrate. In practice, this means a single well-documented process (say, medication management) needs to show up consistently across several of these categories, not just exist as a policy on a shelf.

The practical shift is towards continuous evidence rather than a single inspection event. Ratings are built up from what CQC finds under each key question, so a serious problem in one area can pull down the rating for the whole key question, however strong everything else is. That makes it far more valuable to have live, accurate records that reflect real practice at any given moment, rather than a strong paper trail assembled just before an expected visit.

In March 2026, CQC published four draft assessment frameworks, one for each of its main sectors, including adult social care. They keep the five key questions and the four ratings (outstanding, good, requires improvement and inadequate), but replace the quality statements with key lines of enquiry: structured questions that describe what CQC will look for. CQC also plans to stop scoring and to make its ratings directly at key question level, using descriptions of what each rating looks like.

CQC is piloting the drafts with a sample of providers from June to October 2026, with a final evaluation due in November 2026. It has not yet announced a start date, so the current framework still applies. The advice above doesn't change: keep evidence of good care up to date all the time, not just before an inspection. You can follow progress in CQC's updates on how it is changing its approach.