Care providers could be forgiven for feeling that the language and mechanics of regulation have changed rather frequently.
Key lines of enquiry became quality statements.
A single assessment framework arrived.
Now CQC is moving towards separate, sector-specific assessment frameworks, with new guidance and methods under development.
On 27 August 2026, CQC published its latest update on that work.
It acknowledged that providers have experienced delays in assessment activity, ratings that may no longer reflect current performance, inconsistent regulatory processes and digital systems that can be difficult to use.
Its Board has now approved further investment covering new sector-specific assessment approaches, regulatory data, registration and assessment processes, and replacement digital services including the provider portal.
CQC says more than 9,646 assessments have now been completed across sectors, exceeding its target of 9,000 by the end of September. Draft assessment frameworks have been tested over the summer, with further sector-specific engagement planned for the autumn.
For providers, there is therefore more change to come.
But perhaps the most useful question is not:
“How do we prepare for the next CQC framework?”
It is:
“Would we understand our organisation well enough if CQC changed the framework tomorrow?”
The framework matters. But it should not become the management system.
Regulatory frameworks are important.
Providers need to understand what CQC expects, how assessments operate and what evidence may be considered.
But problems begin when the external assessment framework gradually becomes the organisation’s internal governance framework.
A provider can start asking:
What evidence do we need for this quality statement?
What folder should this sit in?
Which document demonstrates this requirement?
What might an inspector ask?
Those questions have a place.
But they are not the same as asking:
What is happening in our services?
What are people experiencing?
What are staff struggling with?
Where is risk changing?
Which actions have not been completed?
What have we learned?
What would we know about the quality of this service if CQC did not exist?
That final question can be uncomfortable.
It is also useful.
Aged ratings make the distinction particularly visible
CQC is putting greater attention on services with older ratings.
Its current adult social care programme includes returning to some services rated good to establish whether those ratings remain accurate.
Not every older good-rated service will be assessed in the same way, and CQC has published eligibility criteria for the streamlined approach.
What is particularly interesting is how CQC describes the assessment itself.
The approach places emphasis on people’s experiences and outcomes, including speaking with people using the service, visitors, professionals, staff and leaders and observing care where appropriate.
Records and documents are then used proportionately to substantiate what people say and what inspectors observe.
That is quite different from a model in which a provider imagines that assessment is primarily about presenting a well-organised evidence file.
A service may have an excellent audit system.
If people’s experience of care tells a different story, the audit does not make that experience disappear.
Equally, an excellent service should not need to manufacture a vast additional layer of evidence simply because somebody might visit.
Good governance should already create useful evidence as a by-product of running the organisation well.
An old rating cannot manage today’s service
An old good rating may still be entirely accurate.
But several years is a long time in any organisation.
Managers change.
Staff teams change.
People receiving care change.
Systems are replaced.
Providers grow.
Policies change.
New technologies appear.
Commissioning pressures shift.
What made the organisation good several years ago may not be what keeps it good today.
That makes an aged rating an interesting leadership question even before CQC arrives.
What has changed since we were last assessed?
Not:
What would we like to show an inspector?
But:
What would we need to understand ourselves?
Perhaps the service has become stronger.
Perhaps an experienced manager has created far more stability.
Perhaps recruitment has improved.
Perhaps the organisation has expanded and some of the informal oversight that once worked no longer works quite as well.
Perhaps an electronic system has replaced something that used to depend on conversation.
Perhaps the needs of the people supported by the service have changed.
The rating provides historical information.
The provider still needs current information.
Regulation is changing because CQC is learning too
There is another useful aspect of CQC’s current position.
The regulator is explicitly acknowledging problems with its own systems and redesigning them.
It has moved away from the assumption that a single assessment framework works equally well for every sector and is developing separate sector-specific approaches.
Those changes are still being developed and tested.
Providers should therefore be cautious about building significant new internal processes around draft material before the final approach is confirmed.
There is a broader organisational lesson here too.
Good systems should be capable of learning when something does not work as intended.
That applies to regulators.
It applies equally to providers.
What should remain stable when the regulatory language changes?
Some things should not depend heavily on the assessment framework.
A provider should still know:
- whether people are receiving good care;
- where safety concerns are emerging;
- what complaints are telling the organisation;
- whether staffing is becoming fragile;
- which important actions remain unresolved;
- whether safeguarding learning is being followed through;
- where staff are regularly having to work around a process;
- whether managers have the support they need;
- whether people and families are experiencing something differently from what the organisation believes is happening.
The labels around those questions may change.
Their importance does not.
That is why the strongest governance arrangements are rarely those built solely around a regulator’s headings.
They are arrangements built around the organisation’s own need to know.
Inspection readiness should be an outcome, not a project
There is an understandable temptation when regulatory activity increases to launch an inspection-readiness exercise.
Check every policy.
Reformat the evidence.
Update the folders.
Run mock interviews.
Make sure everybody knows what to say.
Some checking is sensible.
But there is a significant difference between checking that the organisation can demonstrate what it does and temporarily making the organisation look different because an assessment might happen.
Mandersley’s position remains simple:
We don’t help organisations prepare for inspection. We help them become the kind of organisation that is always prepared.
That means a provider can answer questions because the information is already useful internally.
Actions are visible because somebody genuinely needs to know whether they happened.
Learning is retained because the organisation wants to remember it.
Managers understand risks because they are actively managing them.
People’s feedback is heard because it matters to the service.
The evidence then exists because the organisation is functioning well — not because somebody created it for an inspector.
The new CQC approach is worth watching, not chasing
Provider leaders should absolutely follow CQC’s developing framework.
There will be new guidance.
There will be changes in terminology and methodology.
CQC has said it will undertake further sector-specific engagement during the autumn and continue to refine its future digital and regulatory systems.
Those developments matter.
But an independent provider does not need to repeatedly redesign itself around every regulatory iteration.
A stronger test is:
If the regulator changed the questions, would we still know the answers that matter?
If the answer is yes, the organisation is probably starting from a much stronger place.
How Mandersley can help
Mandersley supports independent care providers to develop clearer provider-level visibility without creating governance for governance’s sake.
That can mean helping leaders understand which information genuinely needs provider attention, connect signals from different parts of the organisation, strengthen action follow-through and retain learning over time.
The purpose is not to create a system designed around the latest CQC framework.
It is to help build an organisation that understands itself well enough to respond confidently when the external environment changes.
Sources and further reading
Care Quality Commission — Rebuilding our regulatory approach and digital services, 27 August 2026
https://www.cqc.org.uk/about-us/improving-how-we-work/0826-update
Care Quality Commission — Returning to good adult social care services
https://www.cqc.org.uk/guidance-regulation/adult-social-care/returning-good
Article note
This Insight reflects CQC’s published position at 28 August 2026. The future sector-specific assessment framework remains under development, and providers should continue to follow current CQC guidance while changes are finalised.