34 Quality Statements to 24 Key Lines of Enquiry
From 34 quality statements to 24 key lines of enquiry: what actually moved
There is a lot of noise about the new CQC framework at the moment, and some of it is wrong.
I have seen at least four different "complete list of the 24 KLOEs" circulating, all with slightly different wording, most of them on the websites of companies selling compliance software. Some of that wording does not appear in CQC's published draft. Before you build a compliance plan on a list you found in a newsletter, check where the list came from.
So let me set out what is actually confirmed, what it means, and how to work with it.
What is confirmed
CQC published its draft adult social care assessment framework on 24 March 2026. The consultation on it closed on 12 June 2026.
The draft replaces the 34 quality statements with 24 key lines of enquiry, distributed like this:
- Safe — 6
- Effective — 6
- Caring — 3
- Responsive — 4
- Well-led — 5
The five key questions are unchanged. The four ratings are unchanged. Numerical scoring is being removed and replaced with rating characteristics.
That is the confirmed structure. The precise final wording of each key line of enquiry is not settled, because the consultation has only just closed and pilots are still running until October.
## Why the numbers matter more than the words
Providers get fixated on wording. I would rather you looked at the distribution, because the distribution tells you where CQC is putting its attention.
Caring has three.That is the smallest group. It is not that caring matters less — it is that caring is difficult to evidence on paper and is largely assessed through observation and what people tell inspectors. You cannot prepare for Caring with a folder. You prepare for it by having a service where people are genuinely well treated, and by making sure your staff can talk about the people they support as individuals rather than as a set of needs.
Well-led has five. Roughly a fifth of the framework. Well-led has been the most common reason for a poor overall rating for years, because it is where governance failures show up, and governance failures are usually the reason the other four went wrong. Five key lines of enquiry under Well-led is CQC signalling that leadership and oversight are being looked at hard.
Safe and Effective have six each.Together that is half the framework. This is the operational core: risk, safeguarding, medicines, staff competence, assessment and care delivery.
What "34 to 24" does not mean
It does not mean less to do.
Fewer headings does not mean fewer expectations. The quality statements overlapped each other — that was one of the specific criticisms in the Dash review. Removing overlap reduces the number of headings without reducing the ground covered.
What it means in practice is that the same evidence now has to work harder under fewer headings, and that evidence which was sitting comfortably in a gap between two overlapping statements no longer has anywhere to hide.
The mapping exercise, done properly
Here is how I would approach this with a service.
**Start with what you have, not with the framework.** List your actual evidence — audits, care plans, supervision records, incident analysis, feedback, training records, meeting minutes. What genuinely exists and is current. Not what your policy says should exist.
**Then place it against the five key questions and the counts above.** You do not need the final wording to do this. You know what Safe means. You know what Well-led means. Put your evidence where it belongs.
**Look for the thin patches.** Almost every provider I work with finds the same two: outcomes over time, and evidence of governance actually driving change. Plenty of services can show me an audit. Far fewer can show me what changed because of the audit, and whether it stayed changed.
**Then check the framework when it is final.** Adjust. But by then you will have done the hard work, and adjusting is a fraction of the effort of starting.
This sequence matters. If you start with the framework, you produce evidence to fit headings. If you start with your service, you produce evidence of your service and then organise it. The second approach survives a framework change. The first one does not, which is exactly why so many providers are having to redo this now.
On the summaries and the software
I am not against digital records or compliance tools. Good digital care records make evidence easier to find and harder to backdate, and that is a real advantage.
But be careful about two claims that are being made quite loudly at the moment.
The first is that paper records will fail under the new framework. CQC has not said that. It is piloting a process for accessing digital care records with provider consent, currently expanding in the North of England, and participation is voluntary. Digital helps. It is not a regulatory requirement.
The second is that anyone knows the final KLOE wording. They do not. The consultation closed six weeks ago.
Where a claim about the new framework matters to a decision you are making, go to CQC's own published material. It is free, it is on their website, and it is the only version you will actually be assessed against.
What I would take from all this
The change from 34 to 24 is a simplification, and simplification is good. But it redistributes emphasis, and the redistribution tells you something: leadership and governance are under more scrutiny, and the softer, harder-to-document parts of care will be judged on what inspectors see and hear rather than what you file.
If your quality assurance already tells you honestly how your service is doing, this framework will suit you. If your quality assurance mainly produces documents, this is the year to change that.
If you would like someone to work through the mapping with you before the final framework lands, get in touch. It is a lot easier to do calmly in August than urgently in December.
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*Tiffany Nelson supports adult social care providers in England with CQC registration and inspection preparation. [tiffanynelsonconsulting.co.uk](https://www.tiffanynelsonconsulting.co.uk) | [Connect with me on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-nelson-177784281)*
**Sources:** CQC draft adult social care assessment framework (published 24 March 2026, consultation closed 12 June 2026); Review into the Operational Effectiveness of the Care Quality Commission, Dr Penny Dash (October 2024); CQC provider bulletin, June 2026 (digital care records pilot expansion).