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

Key takeaways

The CQC now assesses general practices against 34 quality statements under its Single Assessment Framework, not the retired key lines of enquiry.

The five key questions survived that change, and the crosswalk table below pairs each old KLOE prompt with its replacement.

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

Once the draft report arrives you have 10 working days to challenge factual accuracy, and 15 working days after publication to query the rating process.

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 act. Specifically, you pull the evidence together, brief the team, and show inspectors that good care runs through everyday routines.

This CQC checklist for general practice walks you through exactly what to prepare. It reflects the Single Assessment Framework and the changes arriving through 2026. Use it as a CQC inspection checklist for a GP surgery of any size.

In fact, there is no separate commercial CQC inspection checklist for private practices. A private surgery registers under the same Health and Social Care Act regulations as an NHS one. Likewise, it meets the same fundamental standards and answers the same five key questions.

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 rather than a last-minute scramble.

The 15-step CQC prep checklist for your general practice

Generally, the practice manager owns readiness across the building and the paperwork. Work through these 15 steps in the fortnight before an inspection. Keep most of them running year-round, and 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 you store controlled drugs
8. Keep a trained first aider and a stocked first aid box in a designated area
9. Check that all fire equipment is in the right place 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 you obtain consent, which services you offer, and how you protect confidentiality, 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). It is the group of staff and registered patients aged 16 and over who feed into how the practice runs.

Particularly, steps 3 and 4 are where a system pays off. For example, practice management software like Pabau tracks inventory automatically, registering stock in and deducting what you use. You can see current levels and expiry dates without opening a cupboard, so 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. Registering with it is a legal requirement before you can see patients. In particular, it matters most if you are starting a medical practice.

Furthermore, 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.

Overall, the CQC regulates hospitals, dentists, care homes, and clinics. We wrote this guide specifically for general practices preparing for an inspection.

What a CQC inspection involves

A CQC inspection no longer happens as a single planned event every few years. Under its current approach, the CQC monitors practices continuously using CQC Insight. For instance, that dataset draws on sources already in the public domain, including the GP Patient Survey, QOF (Quality and Outcomes Framework) data, and local intelligence.

Subsequently, the CQC compares that data 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. As a result, a practice whose indicators shift can move up the queue for a visit.

How often the CQC inspects you depends partly on your last rating.

Where a data review shows no cause for concern, the CQC will confirm that it needs no further action 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. Consequently, the CQC retired the old key lines of enquiry (KLOEs), and 34 quality statements took their place. The CQC writes each one as a short “we” commitment, and each 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. In detail, those include 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. They can update a rating whenever new evidence appears, not only after a full inspection.

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

CQC key lines of enquiry: What KLOEs meant before quality statements

CQC key lines of enquiry served as the numbered prompts inspectors worked through before quality statements existed. For healthcare services, general practice included, there were 27 of them, coded S1 through to W8 beneath the five key questions.

S1, the first prompt under safe, read: “How do systems, processes and practices keep people safe and safeguarded from abuse?” Each KLOE carried its own sub-prompts, and practices built their old inspection folders around them.

The CQC began retiring them from November 2023 as it rolled out the Single Assessment Framework, and 34 quality statements took their place. Despite the overhaul, the five key questions did not move. Instead, what changed underneath was the wording, the evidence structure, and the scoring.

CQC KLOEs vs. quality statements: A crosswalk by key question

Most of the KLOEs CQC inspectors once worked from have a clear descendant in today’s quality statements. The table below pairs one retired prompt with its replacement under each key question. Use it to translate old audit headings into current language without starting again.

Two things to watch when you use this crosswalk. The mapping is not one for one, because 27 CQC KLOEs became 34 quality statements. In addition, a few statements have no KLOE ancestor at all, including workforce wellbeing and enablement and environmental sustainability.

Each quality statement also carries an “I statement” written from the patient’s point of view. Safeguarding has the one quoted earlier: “I feel safe and am supported to understand and manage any risks.” Read those alongside the “we” statements when you decide which evidence to file where.

CQC registration for general practice

Before a general practice starts providing services, it must apply for CQC registration. Your CQC registration then needs to stay 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.

Then, approval brings a certificate of registration naming your provider, your locations, and the regulated activities your registration covers. Inspectors check that your CQC certificate still matches what the practice actually does. A minor surgery service you added last year and never registered is exactly that kind of mismatch.

Registration also needs to cover any additional services you run alongside core general practice, such as travel clinic care or minor surgery. Accordingly, 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

You usually get around two weeks’ notice of a planned inspection. The CQC calls the practice to announce the visit, then confirms the date and time in writing. It can still 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 — you should not need to create them from scratch:

• Evidence that you monitor service and treatment quality. Include 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. Then, they explain the purpose of the visit and ask 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 you took reasonable actions
4. Health and safety documentation
5. Business continuity plan
6. HR policies, staff files, and procedures, including induction, DBS checks, 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 you have rostered your most experienced staff for the day

A system like Pabau already holds schedules, feedback, and reporting in one place. Most of Week 1 then 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. Above all, 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.

The six population groups are the patient cohorts the CQC uses to test whether a practice meets different needs:

• Older people — everyone in your practice population aged 75 and over, whether at home or in a care home you cover.
• People with long-term conditions — patients under 75 with an ongoing condition that has no cure, such as diabetes, COPD, or epilepsy.
• Families, children and young people — expectant and new parents, babies, and anyone up to their 18th birthday.
• Working age people, including those recently retired and students — everyone of working age, in a job or not, plus the recently retired up to 75.
• People whose circumstances may make them vulnerable — this must always include people with a learning disability, people at the end of life, and homeless people.
• People experiencing poor mental health, including dementia — anything from depression to severe and enduring mental illness, plus patients living with dementia.

The groups overlap on purpose, so one patient can sit in several at once. Worth knowing before you build slides: the CQC no longer publishes a separate rating for each group. Instead, findings now appear inside the key question sections of your report.

Cover the groups anyway. Inspectors still ask how you meet their needs, and a slide per group is the fastest way to show you know your own population.

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. Overall, 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 advance and urgent bookings. Check your online booking reflects 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.”

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, it plans to develop assessment frameworks tailored to primary care. Additionally, those will come with guidance for providers. Implementation begins at the end of 2026, after piloting with practices.

Which framework applies to you depends on timing:

• Inspected before the new framework goes live: the current Single Assessment Framework and its quality statements apply.
• 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.

What happens after a CQC inspection: Ratings, actions, and enforcement

How CQC ratings are published and scored

The CQC publishes a report with a rating for each of the five key questions and an overall rating for the practice. What happens next depends on that rating, and on whether the same rating has come up before.

Before publication you get the draft report to check. Then, you have 10 working days from the date of that email to submit factual accuracy comments. Also, back each point with evidence that already existed at the time of the assessment.

Newer reports also carry a percentage score alongside the rating, which shows whether you sit at the top or the bottom of a band.

Enforcement for repeated low ratings

Consequently, a third consecutive requires improvement rating triggers a formal management review meeting, where the CQC weighs up using its enforcement powers.

Generally, special measures run for around six months. If the re-inspection still finds inadequate care, the CQC can propose to cancel your registration or vary its terms. Either outcome stops the practice operating as it does today.

Challenging a rating and displaying results

You can challenge the process, but not the judgment. Ask for a rating process review within 15 working days of publication, in 500 words or fewer. The only valid ground is that the CQC failed to follow its own process for reaching a rating.

Whatever the outcome, you must display the rating in the practice and on your website. The report stays public for every prospective patient to read.

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. However, 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. If your current system can’t produce that evidence, comparing Phorest alternatives is a sensible starting point.

• It builds in workforce schedules, so you can plan cover and block time for training or leave. Everything shows as a record.
• It requests feedback automatically after each appointment and ties it 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: you spend less time assembling paperwork under a two-week deadline, and more of your compliance stays visible on demand.

Keep your CQC evidence inspection-ready

Pabau keeps appointment access data, patient feedback, staff training records, and stock levels in one system. When the notification letter arrives, you run a report instead of rebuilding a year of evidence.

Book a demo

Conclusion

A good inspection starts long before the letter arrives. Keep your registration current and organize your evidence by the five key questions. 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 are the ones that walk in calm. A system like Pabau that keeps evidence in one place makes that far easier.

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.

Continue your research

Not registered with the CQC yet? How to navigate CQC registration walks through the application, the fees, and the evidence you submit.

Want the regulator’s remit in plain English? Understanding the Care Quality Commission and its role explains what it regulates and how it monitors practices.

Running a GP surgery across disconnected systems? GP clinic software shows how records, scheduling, and reporting sit in one place.

Need patient experience evidence for the caring and responsive questions? How to capture patient feedback covers the methods that produce answers you can show an inspector.

Building the data security side of your well-led evidence? Data protection best practices cover the controls the governance quality statement expects.

CQC inspection FAQs for general practices