CQC's new sector-specific frameworks: what every provider needs to know in 2026

After less than three years, the Care Quality Commission's Single Assessment Framework (SAF) is being replaced. CQC has confirmed it will introduce four separate sector-specific assessment frameworks — a significant shift that will affect how every regulated health and social care service in England is inspected and rated.

If you manage a care home, supported living service, GP practice, hospice or any other CQC-regulated service, this change matters. Here's everything you need to understand.

Why is CQC changing the framework again?

The SAF was introduced in late 2023 with a clear ambition: one unified framework for every service CQC regulates, from care homes to NHS acute trusts. The idea was consistency and simplicity. In practice, it created significant problems.

Independent reviews — including those conducted by Dr Penny Dash and Professor Sir Mike Richards — found that the SAF was overly complex, lacked transparency and regularly failed to reflect the genuine quality of care being delivered. The 34 Quality Statements had to be scored separately, making inspections slow and burdensome. The numerical scoring system was widely criticised as inflexible and inconsistent.

Most significantly, the SAF tried to apply one structure to services as different as care homes, dental practices, ambulance trusts and independent hospitals. The result was a framework that often felt irrelevant to the realities of individual sectors.

What's replacing the Single Assessment Framework?

CQC is introducing four sector-specific assessment frameworks, published in draft form in March 2026:

Each framework is tailored to the distinct characteristics of that sector — rather than applying generic quality statements that may be meaningless in certain settings.

What's staying the same?

Despite the significant changes, several core elements of CQC's approach are being retained:

• The five key questions — Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-Led remain central to every framework
• The four-point rating scale — Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate are unchanged
• Continuous assessment — CQC's move away from periodic inspections towards ongoing evidence collection continues
• Evidence categories — people's experience, staff feedback, partner feedback, processes, observations and outcomes remain relevant

What's changing?

The most significant changes in the new frameworks are:

Quality Statements are being replaced by Key Lines of Enquiry

The 34 Quality Statements — the "We statements" that defined what providers needed to do — are going. In their place, structured Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) return. Unlike Quality Statements, which were written as declarations of intent, KLOEs are framed as questions — describing what CQC will actively look for during an assessment.

Numerical scoring is being removed

The complex 1–4 scoring process applied to every evidence category against every quality statement is being abandoned. Inspectors will return to evidence-based assessment guided by professional judgement — an approach that was described as both fairer and more transparent.

Rating characteristics are returning

Clear descriptors will define what Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement and Inadequate actually look like in practice — giving providers a concrete benchmark against which to self-assess between inspections. This was widely requested by the sector and is a welcome return.

What does this mean for care homes and supported living?

Care homes and supported living services both fall within the Adult Social Care framework — confirming CQC's long-standing position that these two service types share the same regulatory domain and evidence categories.

For adult social care providers specifically, the new framework is expected to:

• Be more closely aligned with day-to-day practice in care settings
• Place stronger emphasis on safety culture, governance and learning
• Make clearer what "Good" and "Outstanding" look like in practice
• Reduce the administrative burden of evidence collection
• Be more accessible to registered managers without large compliance teams

Regulation 9A — addressing independence, choice and control — has been specifically embedded into the framework for supported living services, reflecting the unique regulatory requirements of that setting.

What should providers do right now?

With the consultation open until 12 June 2026 and piloting planned for summer 2026, there is no need for immediate operational changes. However, there are several things every provider should be doing now:

1. Continue operating under the current SAF — CQC inspections are still taking place under the existing framework and ratings can be updated at any time
2. Read the draft Adult Social Care framework — available on the CQC website at cqc.org.uk. Familiarise yourself with the proposed KLOEs and rating characteristics
3. Respond to the consultation — closes 12 June 2026. Your feedback as a provider will directly influence how the final framework looks
4. Build continuous compliance habits now — whichever framework applies, the fundamentals of good compliance remain the same: robust self-assessment, evidence of continuous improvement and visible leadership quality
5. Don't pause your compliance work — CQC completed over 50% more inspections in November 2025 compared with November 2024. The risk of inspection under the current framework is real and immediate

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Summary

• The SAF is being replaced by four sector-specific frameworks covering Adult Social Care, Mental Health, Primary Care and Hospitals
• The five key questions and four-point rating scale remain unchanged
• Quality Statements are being replaced by Key Lines of Enquiry
• Numerical scoring is being removed in favour of professional judgement
• Rating characteristics are returning to give providers clearer benchmarks
• The consultation closes 12 June 2026 — until then, continue under the current SAF
• Care homes and supported living are both under the Adult Social Care framework

The direction of travel is clear: CQC has listened to the sector and is moving towards a more practical, transparent and sector-relevant approach to regulation. For providers who have been frustrated by the complexity of the SAF, this is genuinely good news.