CQC Quality Statements: Evidence Checklist & Site-Visit Prep
An England-only guide to CQC's single assessment framework — the five key questions, the quality statements, the six evidence categories, and exactly how to prepare for a site visit. Written for registered managers and nominated individuals.
How CQC assessment works now
CQC assesses every service against a single assessment framework built on five key questions: is the service Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led? Each key question is broken down into quality statements written as "we statements" — short commitments phrased from the provider's point of view, such as "We work in partnership with people to make sure we meet their needs."
For each quality statement, CQC gathers evidence, forms a judgement and applies a score from 1 to 4 (1 = significant shortfalls, 4 = exceptional). Those scores combine to produce the rating for each key question and the overall rating. Your job is to make sure that, for every relevant quality statement, the evidence is there and easy to find.
The six evidence categories
CQC looks for evidence across six categories. A well-prepared service can point to something concrete in each one.
| Evidence category | What it means | Examples you should be able to show |
|---|---|---|
| People's experience | What people using the service tell CQC | Surveys, reviews, care-plan involvement, "you said, we did" |
| Feedback from staff and leaders | What your team says about the service | Supervisions, team meetings, staff surveys, exit interviews |
| Feedback from partners | What other professionals say | GP, district nurse, social worker, commissioner feedback |
| Observation | What CQC sees on site | Interactions, dignity, environment, mealtimes, medication rounds |
| Processes | The systems you operate | Policies, audits, risk assessments, training records |
| Outcomes | The results people experience | Reduced falls, weight stabilised, goals achieved, hospital admissions avoided |
Evidence checklist by key question
Use the prompts below to test whether you could evidence each key question today.
Safe
- ☐ Current, person-centred risk assessments for every person
- ☐ Safe medicines management with competency checks
- ☐ Safeguarding concerns raised, referred and tracked to outcome
- ☐ Incident and accident analysis showing lessons learned
- ☐ Safe recruitment records (DBS, references, right-to-work)
- ☐ Staffing that matches assessed need, with cover arrangements
Effective
- ☐ Care plans reflecting current needs and delivering measurable outcomes
- ☐ Mental Capacity Act assessments and best-interest decisions where needed
- ☐ Deprivation of Liberty authorisations tracked and in date
- ☐ Mandatory training and role-specific competency up to date
- ☐ Effective working with health partners (GP, dietitian, SALT, tissue viability)
Caring
- ☐ People treated with dignity and respect, observed in practice
- ☐ Independence, choice and control actively promoted
- ☐ Communication and information needs met (Accessible Information Standard)
- ☐ Emotional wellbeing and relationships supported
Responsive
- ☐ Care personalised to history, culture, faith and preferences
- ☐ Complaints handled within timescales and used to improve
- ☐ People and families involved in reviews and decisions
- ☐ Reasonable adjustments made for individual needs
Well-led
- ☐ Clear governance with a live quality-assurance calendar
- ☐ Action plans tracked to completion with named owners
- ☐ Statutory notifications to CQC made correctly and on time
- ☐ Registered manager in post and a positive, open culture
- ☐ Staff feel able to raise concerns and are listened to
Preparing for a site visit
In the weeks before
- ☐ Run a mock inspection against all five key questions
- ☐ Check your Provider Information Return / statement of purpose is accurate
- ☐ Confirm every registered activity and location detail is correct
- ☐ Close out any overdue actions from recent audits
- ☐ Refresh staff on the quality statements and what "good" looks like
- ☐ Gather recent feedback from people, families and partners
Documents to have ready
- ☐ Care plans and risk assessments (a sample across dependency levels)
- ☐ MAR charts and medication audits
- ☐ Training matrix and supervision records
- ☐ Recruitment files showing safe recruitment
- ☐ Complaints, compliments and safeguarding logs
- ☐ Incident/accident analysis and action plans
- ☐ Audit reports with evidence of improvement
- ☐ Policies relevant to the five key questions
On the day
- ☐ Nominate a lead point of contact for the inspector
- ☐ Brief staff — calm, honest, know where evidence lives
- ☐ Make a quiet space available for interviews
- ☐ Be ready to demonstrate your systems live, not just describe them
- ☐ Have the finding-to-outcome trail ready for any topic they pick
What inspectors are really testing
Inspectors are not looking for perfect paperwork — they are looking for whether your systems actually keep people safe and drive improvement. When they choose a topic, they will follow it end to end: from the person's experience, to the care plan, to the risk assessment, to the audit that checked it, to the action you took when something slipped. If that thread holds together, you evidence "Well-led" without saying a word.
Common pitfalls to avoid
- Evidence that exists but cannot be found quickly. Disorganised evidence reads as no evidence.
- Strong processes, no outcomes. Show the results people actually experienced.
- No partner feedback. It is one of the six categories — gather it in advance.
- Actions logged but never closed. Open actions undermine "Well-led."
- Staff who cannot describe the quality statements. Culture shows in what your team says.
Make every day inspection-ready
MyCareAudit maps your evidence to the five key questions and the quality statements automatically, flags gaps before an inspector would, and keeps your finding-to-outcome trail live — so a site visit is just a normal day with a visitor.