Well-led · KLOE 3
Capable and compassionate leaders
Do leaders at all levels have the capacity and capability to effectively deliver high quality care with accountability and empathy?
CQC wording, mental health care draft, pages 64 to 67.
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:
- Leadership competency, support and development
- Safe recruitment of leaders/Fit and Proper Person Regulations (FPPR)
- Role expectations and personal accountability
- Succession planning and talent management
- Visible, inclusive leadership
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 64 to 67. 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
- Leadership is supportive and people-focused, with leaders at all levels empowered to act and work collaboratively to deliver excellent and sustainable care.
- Leaders are proactively visible, accessible and responsive. They embody integrity, honesty and openness, and build strong, respectful relationships with staff, people and local communities through inclusive and transparent engagement. Leaders’ visibility and engagement results in demonstrable improvements in experience, access and outcomes, including for marginalised and under-served groups.
- There is a coherent, service-wide leadership development and succession process, aligned to strategic priorities and future risk. This actively identifies, nurtures and progresses diverse talent, reflects the communities served, and ensures continuity, resilience and long-term sustainability of leadership capacity.
- Leaders operate confidently at system level, shaping shared priorities across the health system and modelling compassionate leadership beyond the service’s boundaries. They embrace opportunities to have a positive impact on the wider health and care system.
- There are comprehensive and successful leadership strategies to ensure and sustain their delivery. Leaders use analyses of evidence from feedback from staff, performance data, talent metrics and lived experience to develop them. There is strong collaborative, team working and support across all functions. Staff are engaged, empowered and united by shared values, with a clear sense of belonging and a common focus on improving the quality of care and people’s experiences.
- Leaders actively create and sustain a culture of psychological safety, where staff feel confident to speak up, challenge and innovate. Leadership behaviours demonstrably enable continuous improvement and high levels of staff engagement and morale.
- For mental health units: The responsible person appointed in compliance with the Mental Health Units (use of force) Act 2018 (‘the 2018 Act’) meets regularly with colleagues who have delegated responsibility for compliance with the 2018 act. The RP has an interest in reducing restrictive practice and a clinical background that includes experience of using restrictive practices.
- There is visible and inspiring leadership that models commitment to equality and diversity and leads by example.
Good
- Leaders at all levels have the experience, capacity, capability and integrity to ensure that the service’s vision and strategy can be delivered. Leadership is generally supportive, inclusive and people focused, enabling the delivery of safe, effective and compassionate care.
- Leaders are held to account for delivering high-quality care and for modelling inclusive, compassionate behaviours, with clear expectations and consequences where expectations are not met.
- Leaders at every level are visible and lead by example, modelling integrity, honesty and openness, encouraging mutual trust between staff, leaders, people and communities, and the systems they work in.
- Leaders are knowledgeable and use engagement, data and research to understand the issues and priorities for the quality of services, including social and cultural contexts that affect staff and people who use the service.
- Leaders at all levels can identify and access appropriate support and development in their role.
- High-quality leadership is sustained through safe, effective and inclusive recruitment and succession planning.
- Leaders are supportive, culturally sensitive and non-discriminatory. They demonstrate empathy and act to champion high-quality care and improvement.
- For mental health units: The responsible person appointed in compliance with the 2018 Act has either an established interest in reducing restrictive practice or a clinical background that includes use of restrictive practices.
Requires improvement
- Leaders do not have all the necessary experience, capacity, capability or integrity to ensure the service’s vision can be delivered,
- Staff do not consistently know who their leaders are or how to gain access to them. Leaders do not prioritise modelling integrity, openness and mutual trust between staff, other leaders, people and their communities, and the systems they work in are not prioritised.
- Leaders are not always aware of the risks, issues and challenges in the service and do not always make effective use of engagement, data and research to do so. Leaders are not always knowledgeable about their roles and their accountability for quality. Social and cultural contexts are not always considered as contributing factors to quality, or this is not embedded practice.
- The need to develop leaders is not always identified. Action is not consistently taken to support high-quality culturally sensitive and non-discriminatory leadership through safe, effective and inclusive recruitment and succession planning.
- Leaders are not consistently supportive, which has a negative effect on embedding a demonstrable impact on the quality or sustainability of services.
- When something goes wrong people receive an apology. However, it is not always timely or sincere, or they are not told about actions to prevent the same thing happening again. People do not all feel their contributions are valued or responded to in the same way.
- For mental health units: The responsible person appointed in compliance with the 2018 Act has no experience or demonstrable interest in restrictive practice.
Inadequate
- Leaders do not have the necessary experience, capacity, capability or integrity to lead effectively, including in a culturally sensitive and non-discriminatory way. There is no stable leadership team, with high unplanned turnover and/or vacancies.
- Staff do not know who their leaders are or what they do or are unable to get access to them. Staff, people and communities lack trust in leaders and there are no external system relationships in place.
- Leaders are disconnected from what is really happening in services, and they cannot identify or do not understand the risks, issues and challenges described by staff. This includes wider social and cultural contexts that may be affecting the quality of care.
- There is little or no attention to succession planning and inclusive and diverse development of leaders.
- There are few examples of leaders making a demonstrable impact on the quality or sustainability of services.
- When something goes wrong, people do not receive an apology, or actions are not taken to prevent the same thing happening again. People are not all treated in the same way.
- For mental health units: Either a responsible person has been appointed in compliance with the 2018 Act, or the responsible person does not have a relevant clinical background.
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.