Effective · KLOE 3
Supporting people to live healthier lives
Are people encouraged and supported to manage their own health and wellbeing?
CQC wording, draft v9, pages 27 to 29.
Draft, not the current assessment framework
CQC's adult social care draft v9, dated 19 March 2026. The current quality statements remain in use.
CQC draft scope
What this proposed KLOE covers
Scope of this key line of enquiry and topic areas include:
- Health and well-being deterioration and prevention
- Supporting access to healthcare services (for example, GP, dentists, audiology, speech and language therapy, dieticians)
- Healthier lives promotion (including physical activity, healthy diets)
- Keeping well and managing risks in hot or cold weather
How would this apply to your service?
The draft applies one framework across adult social care, but useful evidence depends on your service and people.
Source: Adult social care assessment framework, draft v9, 19 March 2026, pages 27 to 29.
HLTH analysis
What this could mean in practice
People should be supported to manage their health, prevent avoidable deterioration and pursue wellbeing goals that matter to them.
Support should promote informed choices about physical and mental health, diet, activity, personal care and oral health. Staff should recognise emerging risks, facilitate access to relevant professionals and act on advice or recommendations.
Evidence and conversations to explore
- Personal health and wellbeing goals
- Recognition and prevention of deterioration
- Access to health support and follow-up
Questions worth asking
- How much choice and control do people have over managing their health?
- How are changes in health or wellbeing recognised and followed up?
- What barriers affect access to health checks, specialist input or healthier choices?
HLTH's interpretation of CQC's 19 March 2026 draft. This is not current CQC guidance, an official interpretation, a checklist or a rating prediction. Reviewed 17 September 2026.
CQC draft rating characteristics
How the draft describes each rating
These are CQC's draft characteristics. CQC says rating characteristics guide judgements, they are not a mechanical checklist.
Outstanding
- There are established systems within the service that actively support staff by sharing and embedding learning to make sure people have good health and well-being outcomes that exceed expectations, leading to an outstanding quality of life.
- People are empowered to make healthier, informed choices and the service works with them to monitor the impact. Equity and inclusion are prioritised, so that support to live healthier lives creatively adapts to diverse needs.
- Where people have complex or continued health and care needs, staff seek innovative and evidence-based ways to help them lead healthier lives and continuously improve. Links with health and social care services are excellent, encouraging other providers to follow this partnership model.
- There is a deliberate focus on health improvement to ensure that care goes beyond meeting clinical or care needs.
- There is an embedded culture where staff understand the importance of health promotion and are empowered to implement innovative practices that promote healthier lives and independence. Any learning is shared internally and externally.
Good
- People are supported to manage their health, care and wellbeing needs by staff who understand their needs and preferences. They are empowered to set goals and achieve what is important to them to stay as healthy and as independent as possible.
- People are supported to be as involved as possible in monitoring and reviewing their own physical and mental health and wellbeing needs. This includes taking part in regular reviews with the service and, where appropriate, being supported to engage in health checks with other health and social care professionals.
- People are encouraged and supported to make healthier choices relating to diet, lifestyle, physical activity, personal and oral hygiene.
- Risks to people’s health and wellbeing are identified and support to prevent deterioration is prioritised. This includes understanding specific risks for a person due to their needs and specific health conditions, keeping well in hot and cold weather and supporting people to remain as active and mobile as possible.
- The service works with people who use services and professionals to plan and enable access to health and social care support to achieve good health and wellbeing outcomes. This includes facilitating reasonable adjustments, supporting people to access health checks or to complete healthcare passports.
- The service progresses any relevant advice or recommendations made by other professionals or commissioners to prevent deterioration in health and well-being and avoidable hospital admissions.
Requires improvement
- People are not routinely involved or do not have choice and control in managing their own health and wellbeing needs, where this is possible.
- Risks to people’s health and wellbeing are missed or not identified in a timely way, so avoidable deterioration is not always prevented.
- There is a limited focus on prevention and promoting healthier lives; people are not consistently encouraged and supported to make healthier choices.
- The service does not consistently support people to access health checks or other additional services to improve their health or wellbeing or does not consistently do so at the right time.
- Advice and recommendations made by other professionals are not consistently sought or followed.
Inadequate
- People are not supported to stay healthy and independent.
- Opportunities to improve health and wellbeing and prevent deterioration are routinely or often missed, meaning people’s health and wellbeing worsens.
- People are not given the choice to discuss or access healthier options for diet, lifestyle, physical activity, personal, oral hygiene and health needs.
- The service does not support people to access health checks or other additional services to improve their health and wellbeing or fails to do so at the right time.
- Advice and recommendations for care, support and treatment by other professionals are not sought or followed.
Want to know how your service would fare?
Book a mock inspection run against the draft KLOEs, or call 020 8090 5346 to speak to one of our experts.