How to Prepare for a CQC Inspection: A Guide for Care Home Managers

The best way to prepare for a CQC inspection is to check that what your policies say actually happens every day, and that staff can explain it in their own words. Most care homes already have the documents inspectors ask for. Inspections are usually won or lost on whether practice matches them.

This guide sets out what inspectors look at, the evidence to have ready and the checks to run with your team beforehand.

What does CQC look at during an inspection?

CQC assesses services against five key questions: is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led? Inspectors gather evidence from your records, from observing care and, importantly, from speaking with staff, people who use the service and their families.

Behind the key questions sit the fundamental standards in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. For most care homes the ones that come up most often in safeguarding and dementia care are:

• Regulation 9: person-centred care
• Regulation 11: need for consent
• Regulation 13: safeguarding people from abuse and improper treatment
• Regulation 17: good governance
• Regulation 18: staffing

Start with your last inspection report

Your last CQC report is the clearest guide to what inspectors will return to. For every concern it raised, you should be able to show:

• what you changed
• how you know the change is working
• that the change is part of everyday practice, not only written into a policy

Sustained improvement is far more convincing than paperwork prepared shortly before a visit.

Check that staff can explain safeguarding

Inspectors regularly ask care staff what they would do if they were worried someone was being harmed. Before your inspection, ask a sample of staff on different shifts:

• What would you do if you had a safeguarding concern?
• Who would you tell, and who would you tell if that person was involved?
• What happened the last time a concern was raised here?

If answers vary widely, that is your priority. Training records alone will not satisfy an inspector who finds staff unsure in conversation.

Review the Mental Capacity Act and restrictive practice

Check that capacity assessments are decision-specific and time-specific, that best interests decisions show who was consulted, and that any Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards applications are tracked. Every restriction, such as bed rails, sensor mats or locked doors, should be recorded, justified and reviewed. Staff should be able to explain why the least restrictive option was chosen.

Look at dementia care in practice, not just in care plans

For services supporting people living with dementia, inspectors will look for care plans that reflect each person's life story and preferences, and for staff who understand and respond to distress. When a resident becomes distressed, your records should show what happened before, what staff thought the person was communicating and what helped.

Make sure leaders know what is happening on the floor

Well-led is about whether leaders genuinely know their service. Audits should lead to actions that are followed up and closed. Learning from incidents, complaints and safeguarding concerns should reach the whole team. The registered manager should be able to explain the service's main risks and what is being done about each one.

Evidence to have ready

• Your last CQC report, improvement plan and evidence of progress
• Safeguarding log with outcomes
• Mental capacity assessments, best interests decisions and DoLS tracker
• A register of restrictive practices with review dates
• Care plans that show life story and person-centred detail
• Training matrix, supervision records and team meeting minutes
• Audit schedule, recent audits and actions taken

Use a checklist, then get an independent view

Our free CQC inspection readiness checklist turns these checks into 41 tick-box items mapped to CQC's key questions. Work through it with your management team and tick an item only if you could show an inspector the evidence today.

Internal checks are valuable, but when you know a service well it is easy to miss what has become normal. A CQC mock inspection from PMH tests your safeguarding, dementia care and governance the way an inspector might, then agrees a short list of priorities with you.

Frequently asked questions

How long before an inspection should we start preparing? Preparation should be continuous. Inspectors look for evidence of sustained practice, so changes made in the final few weeks carry less weight than improvements that have been in place for months.

Can a care home improve its CQC rating before a re-inspection? Yes, but no one can guarantee a rating. Ratings are decided by CQC on the evidence it gathers. Focus on addressing the concerns raised and showing that changes are part of daily practice.

Is CQC changing how it inspects? In 2026 CQC consulted on new sector-specific assessment frameworks. Read our guide to CQC's 2026 framework changes and check cqc.org.uk for the latest position.