CQC’s Better Regulation, Better Care Reforms: What’s Changing and When
CQC has spent the first half of 2026 consulting on the biggest change to its assessment approach since the Single Assessment Framework was introduced. The consultation, “Better Regulation, Better Care,” closed on 12 June 2026, and CQC has confirmed it expects to publish final frameworks over the summer, with implementation towards the end of the year.
If you’ve only just got comfortable with the current framework, here’s what’s actually proposed, and what isn’t changing.
Quality Statements are being reframed as Key Lines of Enquiry
The 34 Quality Statements that providers have spent the last couple of years mapping their evidence against are set to be replaced with Key Lines of Enquiry, or KLOEs, a term that will be familiar to anyone who worked in the sector before the Single Assessment Framework arrived. Rather than the current statements of intent, KLOEs are framed as structured questions describing what CQC will actively look for during an assessment.
CQC has also proposed four draft sector-specific frameworks, rather than one framework applied uniformly. The idea is that assessments become more relevant to the setting being inspected, whether that’s a care home, a domiciliary care service, primary care, or another part of the sector.
Rating characteristics are coming back
Alongside the new KLOEs, CQC has published draft rating characteristics: clearer descriptions of what “outstanding,” “good,” “requires improvement” and “inadequate” actually look like in practice, built into the framework itself rather than sitting in separate guidance.
What isn’t changing
The five key questions, safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led, remain exactly as they are. This is a change to how evidence is structured and assessed underneath those questions, not a change to what CQC fundamentally cares about.
What to do now
Nothing is final yet, and CQC has been clear that detailed guidance will follow before anything takes effect. But it’s worth not waiting until implementation to think about how your current evidence would map across. If your compliance documentation is organised strictly around today’s 34 Quality Statements, some re-mapping is likely once the final frameworks and supporting guidance are published.
We’re tracking the final publications closely and will be breaking down exactly what they mean, sector by sector, as soon as CQC confirms them. If you’d like a hand thinking through what this means for your service in the meantime, get in touch with the team.