It’s a familiar scene. Word gets round that CQC might be visiting soon, and suddenly everyone is updating care plans, chasing signatures and building a folder of evidence.
The trouble is, that approach catches services out. CQC isn’t looking for a service that can get “inspection-ready” in a hurry. It wants to see a service that’s ready every day.
You may not get any warning
CQC has said that unannounced inspections are “a critical part” of its work. They help inspectors see what a service is really like, and people and their families have told CQC how much they matter.
CQC also says it can’t tell an individual service when it will be assessed. What it has done is publish its priorities. In May 2026, it said that in adult social care it was prioritising:
- services with urgent, emerging risks
- services that haven’t been assessed since registering, where CQC’s data shows very high risk
- services registered for over a year that haven’t been assessed yet
- services with a rating that’s more than six years old
If your rating is old, or you’ve never been assessed, it makes sense to assume a visit could come at any time.
What inspectors look at
Inspectors aren’t just checking paperwork. They’re looking at how your service runs on a normal day. CQC’s five key questions ask whether a service is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led, and CQC has confirmed those five questions are staying.
For some adult social care services rated good, with ratings more than six years old, CQC has described an approach that focuses more on people’s experiences and outcomes, supported by observation and a targeted review of records.
Either way, the message is the same. What people experience, and what inspectors see and hear on the day, matters as much as what’s in the folder.
What’s changing at CQC in 2026
CQC is part way through rebuilding how it regulates. It’s moving away from a single assessment framework to separate frameworks for each sector, including adult social care. The draft frameworks are being piloted with volunteer providers between June and October 2026, with a final evaluation planned for November.
Until the new approach goes live, CQC says providers should keep using its current published guidance. It’s worth keeping an eye on CQC’s website for the final adult social care framework.
What being ready for a CQC inspection every day looks like
These are the questions we’d ask of any care service:
- Can your staff confidently answer questions? Could anyone on shift explain how they keep people safe, what they’d do about a safeguarding concern, or where to find someone’s care plan?
- Is your evidence built every day? Care plans, daily notes, MAR charts and training records kept up to date as you go, not pulled together the week before.
- Do your audits show improvement? An audit that finds a problem only helps if there’s an action, someone responsible for it and a follow-up that shows things got better.
- Do leaders know what’s really happening? Good governance means managers spot patterns in incidents, complaints and audits early, and act on them.
- Do people’s views shape the service? Listen to the people you support, their families and your staff, and be able to show what changed as a result.
Five habits to start this week
- Ask a member of staff on each shift one “what would you do if…” question.
- Pick three care plans at random and check they still reflect the person today.
- Go back to your last audit and check every action has been closed off.
- Walk round the service as if you were seeing it for the first time.
- Check your training records and book refreshers before certificates run out.
Our free CQC compliance essentials checklist sets out the fundamental standards in plain English, with the training that helps you meet each one.
How training helps
Training won’t replace good leadership. But it gives your team the knowledge and confidence to do the right thing on an ordinary Tuesday, not just on inspection day. Courses that help include:
- Audit Management (half day): the audit cycle, collecting data and using what you find to improve practice
- Care Planning and Person-Centred Care (half day): developing, delivering and reviewing person-centred care plans
- Workplace Culture (half day): person-centred practice, accountability, duty of candour and effective teamwork
We can combine courses into one visit and tailor them to your service.
Sources: Care Quality Commission, response to the Care Provider Alliance’s review (11 February 2025), improving our assessment framework, priorities for delivering more assessments (26 May 2026), piloting the new assessment method (4 June 2026) and rebuilding our regulatory approach (27 August 2026). Correct as of 15 September 2026.
