CQC Single Assessment Framework 2026: What Domiciliary Care Agencies Need to Know

1. What is the CQC Single Assessment Framework?

The CQC Single Assessment Framework (SAF) is the new inspection and rating model introduced by the Care Quality Commission for all adult social care providers in England. CQC began rolling it out in 2023, and by 2026 it is the standard framework used for every registered provider — including domiciliary care agencies, care homes, and supported living services.

The SAF replaces the previous inspection model, which used Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) and Prompts to guide inspectors. The old model had served CQC since 2014 but had become increasingly complex, inconsistent across provider types, and disconnected from what people using services actually experienced.

The SAF is built on a simpler, more consistent structure designed to work across all regulated health and social care settings. Rather than a different inspection framework for each type of service, CQC now uses a single approach — hence the name.

Why did CQC replace the old framework?

The old KLOE model produced inconsistent results. Two agencies delivering identical care could receive different ratings depending on the inspector, the evidence focus, and how KLOEs were interpreted. CQC's own data showed the model was producing unreliable assessments of quality — particularly for services with complex populations or those using technology-enabled care.

The SAF addresses this by standardising what inspectors look for (Quality Statements), making the evidence base broader (continuous intelligence, not just inspection-day observations), and weighting People's Experience more heavily in the rating methodology. The goal is ratings that reflect actual lived experience, not just documented compliance.

2. The 5 Key Questions Under the CQC SAF

The 5 key questions remain the backbone of CQC assessment. Under the SAF, each key question now contains a specific set of Quality Statements — and it is against these statements that your evidence is gathered and rated.

Your overall CQC rating is derived from a weighted combination of the 5 key question ratings. Well-led carries the most weight — an Inadequate rating in Well-led makes it almost impossible to achieve a Good overall rating, regardless of how you score elsewhere.

3. Quality Statements: What They Are and How They Work

Quality Statements are the 34 specific commitments that providers must demonstrate across the 5 key questions. Each Quality Statement is written from the perspective of what good care looks like — using "We" language to describe what providers commit to delivering.

For example, under Safe:

• "We work with people to understand what being safe means to them and the best way to achieve that, recognising that living safely involves a degree of risk."
• "We have effective processes to identify, report, record, and learn from safeguarding concerns."

Under Well-led:

• "We have a clear vision, strategy, and culture based on transparency, equity, equality, and human rights."
• "We have a culture of improvement that involves people, our workforce, leaders, and partners."

How are Quality Statements assessed?

Inspectors assess each Quality Statement using evidence from six categories:

Evidence Category	What It Includes	Source
People's Experience	Feedback from service users, families, and advocates	CQC surveys, interviews, complaints data
Feedback from Staff	Views of frontline carers, managers, clinical staff	CQC staff interviews, survey data
Feedback from Partners	Views from NHS, social workers, commissioners	Intelligence sharing, referral records
Observation	Direct observation of care delivery	Site visits, home visits (with consent)
Processes	Policies, procedures, systems in place	Provider Portal, document review
Outcomes	Measurable results and impact on people	Data, audit results, case reviews

How are Quality Statements scored?

Each Quality Statement is given a score from 1 (Inadequate) to 4 (Outstanding). These scores are not averaged equally — CQC applies weightings based on the evidence categories, with People's Experience weighted more heavily than process documentation. The scores across all Quality Statements under a key question combine to produce the key question rating, which then feeds into the overall rating.

4. How the SAF Changes Inspection Preparation for Domiciliary Care

The shift from KLOEs to Quality Statements changes not just what inspectors look for — it changes the entire approach to inspection preparation. Here are the most significant operational changes for domiciliary care agencies:

1. The Provider Portal is now a live inspection tool

Under the old framework, the Provider Portal was largely administrative — you registered, submitted required notifications, and that was it. Under the SAF, the Provider Portal is where you submit your self-assessment against Quality Statements. CQC reads your self-assessment before deciding whether to inspect, what to inspect, and at what level. Agencies that maintain a strong, evidence-backed self-assessment through the portal reduce their inspection risk. Agencies that ignore it are flying blind.

2. People's Experience is a formal evidence category

CQC now treats feedback from people using your service as a primary evidence category — not just anecdotal context. This means your satisfaction processes, complaints handling, and the way you involve service users in care decisions all directly feed your Quality Statement scores. Under the old framework, a perfect policies folder could carry an inspection. Under the SAF, it cannot overcome negative People's Experience data.

3. Governance reporting needs to be data-led

The Well-led Quality Statements specifically assess whether your governance is data-driven — not just documented. Inspectors want to see that you know your training compliance rate today, that you can identify which care plans are due for review, and that you act on trend data from incident reports. Agencies using paper-based governance systems consistently score lower on Well-led Quality Statements because they cannot produce this evidence quickly or reliably.

4. Inspections are shorter but more targeted

Because CQC arrives with prior intelligence from the Provider Portal and continuous data collection, inspection visits tend to be shorter and more focused than under the old framework. Inspectors target the Quality Statements where their intelligence suggests gaps — rather than doing a broad sweep of all documentation. This means your weakest area gets the most scrutiny, not your strongest.

5. SAF Preparation Checklist for Domiciliary Care Agencies

This checklist is organised by the 5 key questions. Use it to audit your SAF readiness — tick each item you have in place. Priority items are marked with badges.

6. How DSCR-Compliant Systems Map to SAF Evidence

One of the most significant advantages of using a DSCR-compliant digital care system under the SAF is the ability to produce evidence for Quality Statements quickly and reliably. The table below shows how key DSCR capabilities map to specific SAF evidence requirements.

DSCR Capability	SAF Key Question	Quality Statement Evidence
Digital MAR sheets with error recording	Safe	Complete medication audit trail; error trends; learning actions
Real-time visit notes with GPS check-in	Safe / Effective	Safe staffing evidence; care delivery records at point of care
Digital care plans with review tracking	Effective	Person-centred, current care plans; outcomes monitoring
Training matrix with completion alerts	Effective	Training compliance rate; upcoming expiries; mandatory training records
Incident and concern logging	Safe / Well-led	Safeguarding referral trail; incident trend reports for governance
Complaints log with response tracking	Responsive	Acknowledgement timescales; resolution records; learning outcomes
Governance dashboard and reporting	Well-led	Data-led oversight evidence; audit results; KPI trend data
Service user satisfaction collection	Caring / Responsive	People's Experience data for SAF weighting; improvement actions

When an inspector asks you to demonstrate how you identify and act on safeguarding concerns, an agency using DSCR can show a live incident log, filtered by category, with linked actions and outcomes — in under a minute. An agency using paper files typically cannot demonstrate the same without a lengthy manual search, and the impression that leaves on an inspector has a direct impact on your score.

7. Common Mistakes Agencies Make When Preparing for SAF Inspections

These are the most frequently cited failure points in SAF inspections for domiciliary care agencies — not hypothetical risks, but patterns identified from CQC inspection reports and provider feedback since the SAF rollout.