CQC’s Single Assessment Framework: What Care Providers Need to Know

CQC Compliance12 min read14 November 2024

CQC's Single Assessment Framework: What Care Providers Need to Know

By Jack Andrew Green, AJG Advisory

The Care Quality Commission's Single Assessment Framework (SAF) represents the most significant shift in how CQC regulates health and social care in more than a decade. For providers who have grown familiar with the previous Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) approach, the SAF introduces new concepts, new evidence categories and a more nuanced approach to assessing quality. Understanding it thoroughly is now a prerequisite for effective CQC preparation.

What is the Single Assessment Framework?

The Single Assessment Framework replaces the previous KLOEs and prompts with a simpler, more integrated approach to assessment. At its heart are Quality Statements, which are short, clear descriptions of what good care looks like from CQC's perspective. Each quality statement is assessed using a defined set of evidence categories, and CQC uses multiple sources of evidence, including feedback from people using services, observations, documentation and provider information, to reach judgements.

The five key questions, Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led, remain the foundation of CQC assessment. What has changed is the way CQC gathers and weighs evidence within each key question, with a greater emphasis on the lived experience of people using services and a more continuous approach to monitoring rather than episodic inspection.

Quality Statements: The New Standard

Quality statements are the statements against which CQC now measures performance. There are 34 quality statements in total, and each one describes what good care looks like in practice. For example, the quality statement for Safe asks whether the service ensures people are protected from abuse and avoidable harm.

For each quality statement, CQC uses a set of evidence categories to gather information. These include people's experience of care, feedback from staff and leaders, observations of care and treatment, the provider's own monitoring data and processes, and outcomes for people. Providers need to be able to demonstrate quality against each relevant quality statement using credible evidence across these categories.

What This Means for Inspection Preparation

Under the SAF, effective inspection preparation requires a different approach to previous frameworks. Rather than mapping evidence to specific prompts, providers need to build a comprehensive evidence base that demonstrates quality across all relevant quality statements.

This means maintaining a live body of evidence that includes feedback from people using the service and their families, staff experience and engagement data, outcomes data, audit results and governance evidence. Providers who can demonstrate that their quality assurance systems are continuously gathering and responding to this evidence will be in the strongest position when CQC inspects.

The Well-Led Question Under the SAF

Well-led has always been important but the SAF has increased its significance further. The quality statements under Well-led ask providers to demonstrate not just what their governance systems look like on paper, but whether they actually work in practice and whether the culture of the organisation supports continuous improvement.

CQC inspectors will look at how providers use quality assurance data to drive improvement, how staff feel about the culture of their organisation, whether leadership is visible and credible, and whether the service genuinely places the people it supports at the centre of decision-making. This makes culture and leadership as important as any operational compliance area.

Practical Steps to Prepare for SAF Assessment

Providers preparing for assessment under the SAF should start by mapping their current quality assurance evidence against the quality statements relevant to their service type. This will identify gaps in evidence rather than gaps in practice, which is often where the most urgent work is needed.

Building a well-organised provider evidence folder that is updated continuously, rather than assembled in a rush before inspection, is one of the most effective practical steps any provider can take. Ensuring that governance meetings are producing meaningful minutes and action records, that staff supervision records evidence professional development and wellbeing support, and that feedback from people using the service is regularly gathered and acted upon will all contribute to a strong SAF evidence base.

Related Services

AJG Advisory provides expert support across all the areas discussed in this article. Speak with Jack Andrew Green directly to discuss your organisation's specific needs.

CQC Consultancy → Mock Inspections → Compliance Audits →

Talk to AJG Advisory

For personalised advice on your specific situation, speak directly with Jack Andrew Green.

Get in Touch All Services

A CONVERSATION IS A GOOD PLACE TO START

Let’s strengthen your organisation.

Speak directly with an experienced healthcare leader about your challenges and ambitions.

Start a conversation

CQC’s Single Assessment Framework: What Care Providers Need to Know