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Back in the June 2013 publication, A new start: Consultation on changes to the way CQC regulates, inspects and monitors care, the CQC explained that it was committed to ensuring people within the system receive safe, effective, high-quality care, and implemented numerous changes to encourage care services to improve. One major change was the introduction of the CQC's Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE).
The Key Lines of Enquiry all sit under five central questions, that inspectors use to help establish whether a service is providing the high standard of care expected of them. Here are those questions:
Is your service...
Safe? Service users, staff and visitors are protected from abuse and avoidable harm.
Effective? People’s care, treatment and support achieve good outcomes, promote a good quality of life and are evidence-based where possible.
Caring? Staff involve and treat people with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.
Responsive? Services are organised so that they meet people’s needs.
Well-led? Leadership, management and governance of the organisation assure the delivery of high-quality person-centred care, supports learning and innovation, and promotes an open and fair culture.
The Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOE)
The original KLOE framework, which included 16 mandatory KLOEs and a wider set of additional KLOEs drawn from the CQC's provider handbooks, was retired in late 2023 when the CQC introduced the Single Assessment Framework (SAF).
The SAF replaced the KLOEs with 34 Quality Statements mapped across the same five key questions. Each Quality Statement was scored on a four-point scale, and the framework was designed to apply universally across all health and social care settings.
However, feedback from providers, inspectors and independent reviewers was largely critical. Many providers found the 34 Quality Statements harder to apply than the original KLOEs: the statements frequently overlapped, the numerical scoring model was a source of confusion, and the one-size-fits-all approach made it difficult to connect inspection evidence to the specific realities of adult social care.
The CQC's own 'Better Regulation, Better Care' consultation, which ran in late 2025 and attracted nearly 1,700 responses, showed strong support for returning to sector-specific frameworks.
In response, the CQC published four draft sector-specific assessment frameworks on 24 March 2026. For adult social care, the key changes proposed are:
- 24 new Key Lines of Enquiry replace the 34 Quality Statements. Around 10 of the new KLOEs correspond directly to an existing Quality Statement; the other 14 are new or significantly reframed.
- KLOEs are written as structured questions, describing what inspectors will actively look for rather than declarations of intent from the provider's perspective.
- Numerical scoring is removed. Ratings are made directly at the level of the five key questions, guided by inspector judgement.
- Rating Characteristics return. Clear descriptions set out what Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate care looks like in practice for each sector.
- Lived experience is embedded. The 'I statements' from Making It Real (Think Local Act Personal) are retained, keeping the voice of people who use services at the centre of assessment.
- Adult social care gets its own framework, rather than sharing one with hospitals, primary care and other settings.
The public consultation on the draft framework closed on 12 June 2026. As of September 2026, the CQC is piloting the new approach, with the pilot running until October 2026 and a final evaluation due in November.
Full implementation is expected towards the end of 2026. Until the new framework goes live, providers continue to be assessed under the current Single Assessment Framework (SAF).
The five key questions- Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led- remain unchanged throughout all of this.
The KLOE Prompts
Under each Key Line of Enquiry there are a further set of what the CQC calls 'prompts'. For example here is Key Line of Enquiry S3 (under the key question 'is the service safe?') with its associated prompts:
It has to be said that these prompts are a guide, not an exhaustive list or checklist that has to be followed. However, the guidance still plays a significant role in the inspection and the inspector's decision making, being the foundation which the inspector's own judgement and factors that become apparent during an inspection are built upon. Familiarising yourself with the prompts can also give you a window into how inspectors work and the ways in which they are supposed to approach inspecting a service.
You can find more CQC prompts along with their Key Lines of Enquiry here
During CQC Inspections
As we already discussed, before a site visit inspectors will select which KLOEs they intend to use based on an ‘information pack’ the CQC provides to its inspectors. This pack is collated from information provided by people who use the service, stakeholders and from the provider itself.
Once at a site visit, inspectors will then indicate which KLOEs they will be inspected to the responsible persons and will gather evidence by talking to service users, visitors and staff, observing care, as well as reviewing records and tracking individual care pathways.
Having accurate, up-to-date, complete and easily accessible records used was, and for some care providers, still is a massive headache and a source of anxiety when it comes to inspections. The use of digital care records has made this aspect of inspections more of a strength than a weakness for those providers that have embraced the technology.
It's not just that digital records have a level of reliability way beyond that of paper, it's also the additional, often forgotten elements such as inbuilt time and date stamping and audit logs that make providing evidence or proof so much easier.
Regardless of the records you use and their reliability, speaking to people that use your service, visitors and staff remain a core component of evidence gathering.
Bear in mind this can extend to catering and cleaning staff, not just care workers and managers. If inspectors are not able to speak to the people they wanted to during the inspection, then they may arrange to do so outside of that timeframe.
Finally, when deciding what questions to ask people it is our old friend the Key Lines of Enquiry that guide the inspector.
Although the answers given and information provided may cause the inspector to add in additional KLOEs, they will still be looking for evidence that relates to answering those originally selected Key Lines of Enquiry too.
How To Prepare For Your Next Inspection
Preparing for a CQC inspection can be difficult even when you have all the knowledge and best practice to hand. Many care providers are more confident and prepared for care inspections with the help of Access Care Compliance. It's unique, and uses the CQC's frameworks to guide you through mock inspections and makes your auditing processes less time-consuming, more targeted and effective.
Available for providers of all sizes and from across social care, whether domiciliary, residential, supported living and so on, take a look at these case studies from Aspire Care Group, Minster Care Group and New Directions Flexible Social Care. For a fully guided demonstration of Access Care Compliance complete this form or find out more here.
The Mandatory Key Lines of Enquiry
The original 16 mandatory KLOEs (sourced from the CQC's ASC Inspection Handbook, October 2014) are no longer the active inspection framework and were superseded by the SAF's 34 Quality Statements in late 2023.
The 24 new KLOEs proposed in the March 2026 draft adult social care framework are not yet confirmed in their final form. The pilot is running through October 2026, with the final framework expected to be published and implemented towards the end of 2026.
What this means for providers right now:
- If you are inspected before the new framework goes live, you will be assessed under the Single
- Assessment Framework (SAF) and its 34 Quality Statements.
- You should familiarise yourself and your team with the 24 draft KLOEs now, as they represent the direction of travel and are likely to be close to the final version.
- The five key questions remain the anchor for all assessment, regardless of which framework is in force.
The draft adult social care assessment framework, including all 24 proposed KLOEs, is publicly available on the CQC website. Providers are strongly encouraged to read it and begin mapping their evidence accordingly.
While we do our utmost to assure the information contained in this article and our other articles is accurate and up to date we are not responsible for any provider's inspection preparedness or any negative consequences that result from incorrect information. Please make use of all resources provided by the CQC to ensure you are as informed as possible.
