The unit of assessment
34 quality statements24 key lines of enquiry
Fewer, broader lines of enquiry replace the quality statements.
What's changing
From quality statements to key lines of enquiry.
CQC's draft framework keeps the five key questions but rebuilds what sits underneath them. The 34 quality statements of the current single assessment framework become 24 key lines of enquiry, each with its own rating characteristics.
The shift, in three moves
The top-level structure
5 key questions5 key questions
Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led all stay.
How a rating is reached
Scored evidence categories4 rating characteristics per KLOE
Each KLOE is described at Outstanding, Good, Requires improvement and Inadequate.
The five key questions carry over
What changed is how many lines of enquiry sit under each, and how each is rated.
Rating characteristics
Descriptions, not scores
Instead of scoring evidence categories and aggregating, the draft describes what each rating looks like for every KLOE. You read your service against the description that fits.
- OutstandingCare is exceptional and consistently better than the Good standard.
- GoodThe service meets the expected standard.
- Requires improvementThe service is not yet Good and has areas that must improve.
- InadequatePerformance is well below the expected standard; enforcement may follow.
What we won't guess
We don't publish a KLOE-by-KLOE map to the old quality statements.
CQC's draft table does not say which of the 24 KLOEs is brand new, which carries a quality statement forward, and which merges several. That crosswalk simply isn't in the source, so we don't show a “new” or “carried over” badge on any KLOE. The moment CQC publishes an authoritative mapping, we'll add it, and only then.