CQC checklist for general practice: 15 steps to a confident inspection

Key Takeaways

The CQC now assesses general practices against quality statements under its Single Assessment Framework, not the retired key lines of enquiry.

You usually get around two weeks’ notice, so keep audits, risk assessments, and significant event records inspection-ready all year.

Inspectors judge you on five key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led.

Sector-specific frameworks are being introduced through 2026, so which framework applies depends on when your inspection falls.

Practice management software like Pabau keeps evidence, schedules, and feedback in one place, so preparing for an inspection means pulling a report, not rebuilding records.

When the CQC’s notification letter lands, a general practice has roughly two weeks to pull its evidence together, brief the team, and show inspectors that good care is built into everyday routines.

This CQC checklist for general practice walks you through exactly what to prepare, updated for the Single Assessment Framework and the sector-specific changes arriving through 2026.

The CQC is England’s independent health and social care regulator. For general practices, the assessment now turns on quality statements and evidence categories rather than the old key lines of enquiry. Get the evidence and the workflows right, and the inspection becomes a description of how you already work, not a last-minute scramble.

The 15-step CQC prep checklist for your general practice

The practice manager usually owns readiness across the building and the paperwork. Work through these 15 steps in the fortnight before an inspection, and keep most of them running year-round so there is little left to do when the letter arrives.

1. Organize and declutter every clinical and public area
2. Be ready for questions on the doctor’s bag, fridge temperatures, emergency drugs, and their logs
3. Confirm your stock control system is accurate and shows nothing out of date
4. Remove out-of-date medical and non-medical stock and reference materials, such as an old British National Formulary
5. Lock all medical supply cupboards securely
6. Store keys in a safe, secure place
7. Identify and assess hazards where controlled drugs are stored
8. Keep a trained first aider and a stocked first aid box in a designated area
9. Check that all fire equipment is correctly placed and in date
10. Keep an accident and incident book available for staff to complete
11. Maintain an isolation room and the policies for using it
12. Provide a private area for patients, including a breastfeeding space where possible
13. Zone your information: display how consent is obtained, which services you offer, and how confidentiality is protected, both in the practice and on your website
14. Give patients a clear way to leave positive and negative feedback and complaints
15. Display information about your Patient Participation Group (PPG), the group of staff and registered patients aged 16 and over who feed into how the practice runs

Steps 3 and 4 are where a system pays off. Practice management software like Pabau tracks inventory automatically, registering stock in and deducting what you use, so you can see current levels and expiry dates without opening a cupboard, and there are no out-of-date items to explain on the day.

What is the CQC and its role in general practice?

The CQC (Care Quality Commission) is England’s independent regulator of health and social care, and registering with it is a legal requirement before you can see patients. It matters most if you are starting a medical practice.

Through monitoring and inspections, the CQC checks that practices meet fundamental standards of safety and quality. After an inspection it publishes a report and a rating, so a practice’s performance is visible to every prospective patient. You can read more about CQC’s role in our full guide.

The CQC regulates hospitals, dentists, care homes, and clinics, but this guide is written specifically for general practices and how they can prepare for a CQC inspection.

What a CQC inspection involves

A CQC inspection is no longer a single scheduled event every few years. Under its current approach, the CQC monitors practices continuously using CQC Insight, a dataset drawn from sources already in the public domain, such as the GP Patient Survey, QOF (Quality and Outcomes Framework) data, and national and local intelligence.

That data is compared against other practices across England to flag where care may have changed. The CQC uses those signals to decide when, what, and where to inspect, so a practice whose indicators shift can move up the queue for a visit.

How often you are inspected depends partly on your last rating:

• Rated inadequate: the CQC typically re-inspects within six months.
• Rated requires improvement: usually re-inspected within around 12 months.
• Rated good or outstanding: reviewed regularly using monitoring data, with an on-site inspection when that data suggests care may have improved or declined.

Where a data review shows no cause for concern, the CQC will confirm that no further action is needed and note the outcome publicly. Reviews also draw on information from partners such as your Integrated Care Board (ICB), which replaced Clinical Commissioning Groups in 2022, and Healthwatch.

CQC quality statements: What inspectors assess now

The biggest shift for general practices is the move to the Single Assessment Framework. The old key lines of enquiry (KLOEs) were retired, and CQC quality statements took their place. Each quality statement is written as a short “we” or “I” commitment, for example “I feel safe and am supported to understand and manage any risks,” and sits under one of the five key questions.

Those five key questions are the backbone of every assessment. Inspectors still ask whether your practice is:

1. Safe
2. Effective
3. Caring
4. Responsive
5. Well-led

Against each quality statement, the CQC gathers evidence in defined categories, including people’s experience of care, feedback from staff and leaders, feedback from partners, observation on site, and your own processes and outcomes. Inspectors weigh evidence across those categories to reach a single score for each quality statement, and can update a rating whenever new evidence appears, not just after a full inspection.

The practical takeaway: organize your evidence by key question so you can answer any quality statement quickly. This table maps each one to what a general practice should have ready.

CQC registration for general practice

Before a general practice starts providing services, it must apply for CQC registration. Your CQC registration then has to be kept current, reflecting any change to the registered manager, partnership, statement of purpose, or regulated activities. Falling out of date here is one of the simplest ways to invite scrutiny.

Registration also needs to cover any additional services you run alongside core general practice, such as travel clinic care or minor surgery, since each falls under its own regulated activity.

As part of your application, you will need to show:

• How you will meet the Health and Social Care Act 2008, its associated regulations, and other applicable law
• How you will meet the CQC’s fundamental standards, which include:

1. Person-centered care
2. Dignity and respect
3. Consent to care and treatment
4. Safe care and treatment
5. Safeguarding from abuse
6. Meeting nutrition and hydration needs
7. Clean, safe premises and equipment
8. Receiving and acting on complaints
9. Good governance
10. Enough qualified, competent staff
11. Fit and proper staff, properly recruited
12. Duty of candour and displaying your ratings

• Written care policies and procedures, and evidence that staff understand them
• That your premises are appropriate for delivering care

How the CQC tells you an inspection is coming

For a planned inspection, the CQC calls the practice to announce the visit, then confirms the date and time in writing. You will usually get around two weeks’ notice, though the CQC can also arrive unannounced where there are concerns.

Alongside the confirmation, the CQC sends a request for specific information and tells you where and how to submit it. Practices generally have about five working days to return it, so the documents below should already exist rather than being created from scratch:

• Evidence that you monitor service and treatment quality, including at least two completed clinical audit cycles from the last 12 months, with the actions taken and results reached
• A summary of complaints from the last 12 months, with actions and learning
• A summary of significant events from the last 12 months, with actions and learning
• An action plan responding to any patient surveys you have run
• The number of full-time staff by role
• Recruitment and training procedures, including induction and arrangements for overseas doctors
• Patient-facing posters and comment cards supplied with your notification letter
• A copy of your current Statement of Purpose, which explains what you do, who for, and where

Documentation to have ready on inspection day

On the day, the inspection team meets the practice manager or a senior GP, explains the purpose of the visit, and asks for the documentation they need. Have these to hand so nothing holds up the walkthrough:

1. Records of significant events
2. Audits covering cleanliness, infection control, and disability access
3. Risk assessments and evidence that reasonable actions were taken
4. Health and safety documentation
5. Business continuity plan
6. HR policies, staff files, and procedures, including induction and a locum policy
7. Operational policies for complaints, safeguarding, medicines management, chaperoning, and repeat prescribing
8. Equipment calibration reports
9. Portable Appliance Testing (PAT) reports
10. Palliative care registers
11. Workforce schedules and a training matrix

Your two-week countdown to inspection day

Two weeks is enough time if you spend it in the right order. Front-load the evidence work, then move to the building and the team.

Week 1 — evidence and documents

• Return the CQC’s information request and audit your compliance library against the current quality statements
• Check that clinical audits, significant event analyses, and risk assessments from the last 12 months show review dates and the actions you took
• Pull your patient feedback, complaints, and QOF data, and note what each shows about the five key questions

Week 2 — practice and people

• Walk the building against the 15-step checklist above
• Brief every team member and run a few mock questions, so staff can speak confidently about safeguarding, consent, and where to find things
• Prepare your 30-minute presentation and confirm your most experienced staff are rostered for the day

Because a system like Pabau already holds schedules, feedback, and reporting in one place, most of Week 1 becomes pulling a report rather than rebuilding records by hand.

How to present your general practice in the best light

Prepare for the 30-minute presentation

Once the team has introduced itself, the practice manager or a senior member of staff gives a presentation of around 30 minutes. It should set out your own view of how you perform across the six population groups and the five key questions. This is your first impression, so it is worth rehearsing.

Things to cover in the presentation

Be open about strengths and challenges. Inspectors respond better to a practice that names its risks and shows what it is doing about them than to one that only lists wins.

1. Start with the culture and a short history of the practice
2. Explain how the practice runs: how you recruit and retain staff, patient numbers, and the groups of people you serve
3. Talk through your monitoring data and explain any indicators where you stand out, whether you see a risk, and what you have done
4. Show how the practice is well-led through staff training, responding to complaints, and how you handle challenges
5. Outline the services you have improved
6. Show how patients access routine and urgent appointments
7. Identify your strengths against each of the five key questions
8. Give examples of outstanding care
9. Walk through care plans and how you work with other organizations and professionals
10. Discuss anonymized patient cases that demonstrate compliance
11. Include patient reviews and feedback
12. Share an example of a staff member going the extra mile for a patient
13. Be honest about the areas you are still improving
14. Present your clinical and non-clinical audit cycles and what they changed

Other tips on how to prepare for the inspection

• Make sure you can pull up any practice information quickly. A single system holding patient, staff, and operational data saves you hunting across tools on the day.
• Expect to show appointment availability for GPs and nurses, and how you handle both advance and urgent bookings, so check your online booking is set up to reflect that.
• Keep your practice website live and up to date
• Roster your most experienced staff for inspection day
• Display your previous CQC rating where patients can see it
• Make sure equipment and premises are clean and sanitized, with hand gel available in key areas

“When the CQC inspection team arrives, there is typically an initial meeting where they introduce themselves and explain the purpose of the inspection. They will ask for relevant documentation, such as policies and procedures, staff qualifications and training records, and patient feedback.

“Communication with practitioners and patients is a key aspect of the inspection. The inspectors interview practitioners to understand how the practice operates, asking about patient care, infection control, safeguarding, and service delivery.

“In my experience, inspectors pay close attention to patient records, cleanliness and infection control, and how well staff know and follow protocols. Patient feedback, positive and negative, is taken into account too. Overall, it is a comprehensive look at how safe, effective, and high-quality the care is.”

It also helps to have a system for capturing patient feedback before an inspector asks about it.

The 2026 CQC framework changes general practices should watch

The CQC is moving away from one framework applied across every sector. As part of its work to make regulation clearer and more sector-specific, it plans to develop assessment frameworks tailored to primary care, supported by guidance for providers, with implementation beginning at the end of 2026 after piloting with practices.

Which framework applies to you depends on timing:

• Inspected before the new framework goes live: you are assessed under the current Single Assessment Framework and its quality statements.
• Inspected during or after the transition: the primary-care framework applies.

Either way, the five key questions remain the foundation, and the evidence a well-run practice keeps does not change. Keep your audits, risk assessments, and feedback current, and you are ready for whichever framework is in force on your inspection date.

How practice management software helps you prepare for a CQC inspection

Most of what the CQC asks for is evidence you already generate: appointments, feedback, training, stock, and audits. The problem is usually that it lives in different places. Practice management software like Pabau’s GP clinic software keeps it in one system, so preparing for an inspection is about retrieving evidence, not recreating it.

• Workforce schedules are built in, so you can plan cover, set repeatable rotas, and block time for training or leave, and show it all as a record.
• Feedback is requested automatically after each appointment and tied to the service, giving you the patient-experience evidence inspectors ask for.
• Reporting turns your data into the audit and outcome summaries the CQC wants, against the targets you set.
• Inventory updates as stock moves, so cupboards match your records and nothing sits out of date.

The result is less time spent assembling paperwork under a two-week deadline, and more of your compliance visible on demand.

Conclusion

A good inspection starts long before the letter arrives. Keep your registration current, organize your evidence by the five key questions, and treat audits, feedback, and risk assessments as living records rather than a two-week project.

Do that, and the visit becomes a chance to show how you already work. With the framework shifting through 2026, the practices that stay ready year-round, helped by a system like Pabau that keeps evidence in one place, are the ones that walk into an inspection calm rather than scrambling.

Want to see how Pabau keeps your audits, patient feedback, and staff schedules inspection-ready in one place? Book a demo and we will walk through it with your practice.

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