Safe · KLOE 4
Safeguarding
Are there systems and processes in place to safeguard people from abuse and improper treatment and support their right to live safely?
CQC wording, secondary and specialist hospital care draft v0.6, pages 10 to 12.
Draft, not the current assessment framework
CQC's secondary and specialist hospital care draft v0.6, published 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:
- Safeguarding systems, processes and practices
- Protection of human rights
- Discrimination, including in relation to protected equality characteristics
- Harassment and victimisation
- Sexual safety
- Mental capacity
- Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) (Liberty Protection Safeguards)
How would this apply to your service?
The draft applies one framework across secondary and specialist hospital care, but useful evidence depends on your service and people.
Source: CQC, Hospitals (secondary and specialist care) assessment framework, draft v0.6, 19 March 2026, pages 10 to 12. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
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
- Safeguarding people is at the core of service delivery. There is a rigorous safeguarding system, with clear roles and responsibilities, through which safeguarding risks are proactively identified, managed, actioned and reduced.
- There is a strong and proactive commitment to taking immediate action to keep people safe from abuse and neglect. This includes building strong relationships with partners and developing clear processes to work together across services.
- Staff seek innovative ways to ensure that people’s human and legal rights are respected.
Good
- There is a strong commitment to taking immediate action to keep people safe from abuse, improper treatment and neglect. This includes working with partners in a collaborative way.
- Staff have a good understanding of safeguarding, appropriate for their role, and know how to recognise and report signs of abuse, improper treatment and neglect. There are clear roles and responsibilities around safeguarding.
- People are supported to understand what safeguarding and keeping safe mean. They understand how to raise concerns for themselves and others and are encouraged and empowered to do so.
- The service has effective safeguarding systems, processes and practices, which protect people from abuse, neglect, harassment and potential breaches of their human rights. These are managed by appropriately trained staff, clearly communicated and accessible to people, staff and visitors to the service.
- The service has a rigorous process for investigating any allegations against people employed in positions of trust. The service acts quickly to ensure there is no risk to people they care for.
- People are protected from discrimination, harassment, and victimisation, including behaviour that may amount to abuse, psychological harm, or a hate crime. This includes discrimination related to protected equality characteristics. The service has effective processes in place to prevent discrimination, promote equality, and to act when discrimination occurs.
- Where children and young people use or visit the service, safeguarding arrangements are in line with national guidance and best practice.
- Staff understand what constitutes a closed culture. Processes are in place to prevent closed cultures from developing. Staff are able to identify concerns and take appropriate action.
- The service considers online safety and supports people to understand how they can protect themselves online.
- Where relevant to the service, there is a clear understanding of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS). These are used appropriately, in line with legislation (the Mental Capacity Act and Mental Health Act), and only when it is in a person’s best interests.
Requires improvement
- Staff do not always take immediate action to keep people safe from abuse, improper treatment and neglect. They do not always work collaboratively with partners.
- Staff have a limited understanding of the term ‘safeguarding’. They are not always clear how to recognise abuse, improper treatment and neglect or who to report it to.
- People are not always supported to understand what safeguarding and keeping safe mean. They don’t always know how to raise concerns for themselves and others and are not encouraged to do so.
- Safeguarding systems, processes and practices are not always reliable or appropriate to keep people safe. They are not always managed by appropriately trained staff and are communicated inconsistently across the service. They are not always accessible.
- The service does not always have processes for investigating allegations against people employed in positions of trust is not rigorous and is used inconsistently. The service does not always act quickly to ensure there are no risks to people.
- The service inconsistently protects people from discrimination, harassment, victimisation, psychological harm, or hate crimes. This includes discrimination related to protected equality characteristics. The service has processes in place to prevent discrimination, and promote equality, but they are inconsistently applied. Staff do not always act when discrimination occurs.
- Where children and young people use or visit the service, safeguarding arrangements do not always align with national guidance and best practice.
- Staff do not always understand what constitutes a closed culture. Processes to prevent closed cultures from developing may be inconsistent. Staff do not always feel confident to identify concerns and take appropriate action.
- The service considers online safety inconsistently. This means that people are not always supported to understand how they can protect themselves online.
- Where relevant to the service, there is a limited understanding of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and they are not always used appropriately, in the best interest of the person, and in line with legislation.
Inadequate
- Safeguarding is not a priority. Staff do not recognise or respond appropriately to signs of abuse, improper treatment of neglect and they don’t take necessary actions to keep people safe.
- The service does not help people to understand what safeguarding means. They don’t know how to raise concerns for themselves and others when they don’t feel safe.
- Safeguarding systems, processes and practices are not fit for purpose.
- The service has no process for investigating allegations against people employed in positions of trust and the service does not act to ensure there are no risks to people.
- People are not protected from discrimination, harassment, victimisation, psychological harm, or hate crimes during care and treatment provision. This includes discrimination related to protected equality characteristics. The service does not have processes in place to prevent discrimination and promote equality. Staff do not act when discrimination occurs.
- Where children and young people use or visit the service, safeguarding arrangements do not align with national guidance and best practice.
- Staff demonstrate little understanding of what constitutes a closed culture. The service does not have processes in place to prevent closed cultures from developing. Staff are not able to identify concerns or take appropriate action.
- Where care and treatment is delivered remotely, the service does not consider online safety. People are not supported to understand how they can protect themselves online.
- There is no understanding of Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) and they are not used appropriately or in a person’s best interests.
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.