Responsive · KLOE 1
Care provision, integration, and continuity
Is care co-ordinated and delivered in a flexible, joined-up way that reflects diverse needs and promotes choice and continuity?
CQC wording, mental health care draft, pages 46 to 48.
Draft, not the current assessment framework
CQC's mental health care draft, 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:
- Availability and provision of services
- Eligibility/funding
- Continuity of care, support and treatment
- Barriers for marginalised groups
- Culturally informed, trauma aware practice
How would this apply to your service?
The draft applies one framework across mental health care, but useful evidence depends on your service and people.
Source: CQC, Mental health care assessment framework, draft, 19 March 2026, pages 46 to 48. 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
- The service actively champions equity, inclusion and personalised choice. Teams work with curiosity and cultural humility to ensure people experience seamless, responsive and consistent support that honours their identity, preferences and circumstances. Barriers that prevent access to care, continuity of care or participation in service-led activities are anticipated and removed wherever possible.
- The service embeds partnership working with local communities and takes proactive, sustained action to address health inequalities. Leaders and staff routinely examine data, listen to lived experience, challenge biases and assumptions, and hold themselves accountable for reducing disparities. They demonstrate a clear, ongoing commitment to ensuring that every group – especially those at greatest risk of exclusion – receives equitable, high-quality mental health care.
- Teams use culturally informed, trauma-aware and anti-discriminatory practice to ensure people experience seamless access to care, continuity of care and genuinely responsive support that reflects who they are and what matters most to them.
- People receive exceptionally well-coordinated, holistic and person-centred care that fully reflects their assessed needs, preferences, strengths, cultures, histories and aspirations. Staff understand and value the whole person – including identity, lived experience, trauma, discrimination, social context and support networks – and adapt care and treatment thoughtfully to achieve the best possible outcomes, recovery and wellbeing.
Good
- The service understands the characteristics and needs of the population it serves and uses this insight to design and deliver flexible services that offer choice and continuity of care.
- People can receive care and treatment from different services that are flexible and provide joined up care that understands the diverse health and social care needs of their local communities.
- People’s care and treatment is co-ordinated and responsive and delivered in a way that meets their assessed needs.
- Delivering and co-ordinating services is multidisciplinary where appropriate, and considers the needs and preferences of different people and communities, including those with protected equality characteristics and those at most risk of a poorer experience of care.
Requires improvement
- The service does not consistently reflect the needs of the population it serves. People’s care and treatment may offer limited flexibility, choice or continuity of care, or the different services are not very well integrated.
- People’s care and treatment is not always co-ordinated, responsive or delivered in a way that meets their assessed needs.
- The needs and preferences of difference people and communities, and those most at risk of a poorer experience of care are not consistently considered when delivering or co-ordinating services. People in these groups may describe poor experiences of care and treatment.
Inadequate
- The service does not reflect the needs of the population it serves. People receive little or no flexibility, choice or continuity in their care and treatment. Services are not integrated.
- People’s care and treatment is not co-ordinated, responsive or delivered in a way that meets their assessed needs.
- The needs and preferences of difference people and communities, and those most at risk of a poorer experience of care are not considered when delivering and co-ordinating services. People may describe discrimination or unsatisfactory experiences of care and treatment.
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.