Mock CQC inspection

What a mock inspection is, and the duty behind it

No regulation requires a mock CQC inspection, but Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 requires systems that enable the provider to “assess, monitor and improve the quality and safety of the services provided”, and a well-run mock inspection is one of those systems. CQC’s guidance on Regulation 17 says providers “must operate effective systems and processes to make sure they assess and monitor their service against Regulations 4 to 20A”, that audits “should be baselined against Regulations 4 to 20A” and “should, where possible, include the experiences [of] people who use the service”, and that “the system must include scrutiny and overall responsibility at board level or equivalent”.

That is the test a mock inspection should meet. It is an audit of the whole service’s compliance with the fundamental standards, seen through the framework the Care Quality Commission (CQC) uses, carried out by someone with enough distance to see what the manager no longer notices, and reported to whoever holds overall responsibility. Its value is the findings and what changes because of them, not the rehearsal itself.

It also has limits worth stating. A mock inspection does not predict a rating, good or outstanding or otherwise. CQC inspectors use “professional judgement” on the evidence they gather, and a provider that has passed its own rehearsal can still be found wanting. The point is to find the gaps first.

What CQC actually does, so the rehearsal matches it

A rehearsal of the wrong thing prepares for the wrong thing. Under the single assessment framework, CQC asks five key questions of every service – is it safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led – with quality statements under each. Its guidance on how often it assesses says a provider’s next assessment “will be either: planned [or] responsive (where we’ve received concerning information)”, and that CQC will define “a set of priority quality statements for each type of service” that it “will typically assess” each time. Its page on differences from its previous model adds that inspections now “support this activity, rather than being our primary way to collect evidence”, and that CQC may be “selective in which quality statements we look at – this could be one, several or all”.

CQC’s guidance on how it gathers evidence describes the parts a rehearsal should copy:

• The start. “We will email you to tell you when an assessment is starting and may ask you for some types of evidence at this point.”
• Evidence requests. CQC will “request evidence directly from providers to support an assessment, most likely by email”, and “apart from the PIR for adult social care services, we will not specify a particular format”. It says plainly: “We do not want providers to prepare specific documents – rather we ask for information they already have.”
• On-site activity: “observing care and how staff interact with people”, “observing the care environment, including equipment and premises”, “talking with people using the service” and “talking with staff and service leaders”.
• No notice. “We may carry out a site visit to collect evidence without giving notice beforehand. We would do this, for example in response to a specific concern.”
• Interviews with staff and service leaders, which “we may do … online”, and feedback from people using the service, families and partner organisations.
• Feedback to the provider after on-site or off-site activity, “immediately after completing it” where possible.

Each quality statement CQC assesses is then scored from 1 to 4 on its guidance on how it reaches a rating: “Evidence shows significant shortfalls”, “some shortfalls”, “a good standard” or “an exceptional standard”. The evidence categories guide explains how those scores become a rating. In March 2026, in its initial response to the Better regulation, better care consultation, CQC said it will replace its quality statements with key lines of enquiry and remove scoring. It is piloting the new approach from June to October 2026, and no date for it to take effect had been published when this guide was written; until then, CQC asks providers to keep using its current guidance, so build the rehearsal on the current framework and check CQC’s provider guidance before each one.

Planning a mock CQC inspection

Decide five things before the day.

1. Who leads it. Someone outside the day-to-day running of the service: a quality lead, a manager from another of the provider’s services, a peer from another provider, or an external reviewer or consultant; if you commission one, ask to see a sample report and how they keep up with CQC’s latest guidance. The registered manager takes part as the person being assessed, not the assessor.
2. Scope. All five key questions once a year is a reasonable cycle; in between, take two or three quality statements at a time, starting with those where the provider’s own audits, incidents or complaints point to risk, and with safeguarding, medicines optimisation and governance, management and sustainability early in the cycle.
3. Notice. Tell the registered manager the month, not the day, as CQC inspectors may arrive without notice, and send the evidence request by email on the morning it starts, with a deadline of a day or two. That tests whether the evidence exists, rather than whether it can be assembled in a week.
4. People who live or are supported there. Tell residents, people who use the service and families that a review is happening and why; ask people whether they are willing to talk, respect a refusal, and take care with anyone who may not understand who the assessor is. The rehearsal must not disturb care.
5. Reporting. Agree in advance who receives the report – the nominated individual, the owner or the board – and the date on which the action plan will be checked.

A useful evidence request is short and specific, and asks only for what the service should already hold: the last three months of falls and incidents with the notifications made; a sample of three people’s care plans chosen by the assessor on the day; the training matrix and supervision record; the last two medicines audits and their actions; recent complaints and compliments; the staffing rota against dependency for one week; and the minutes of the last governance meeting. If something cannot be produced, that is a finding, not a reason to extend the deadline.

A care home inspection checklist built on the six evidence categories

CQC sorts its evidence into six categories, and for care homes and supported living it says it will “aim to collect evidence in similar categories” while reflecting differences between services. A rehearsal that covers all six tests far more than a day on site. The checklist below is for a provider’s own mock inspection; it is not CQC’s list, and CQC’s published framework is the authority.

• People’s experience. Talk to at least five people using the service, and to families by phone. Do they know who to tell if something is wrong, and has anything changed when they did? Are their preferences known by the staff caring for them? Read the complaints log and compliments against what people say.
• Feedback from staff and leaders. Interview a sample of staff across shifts, including night staff and agency or bank workers. Ask what they would do about a safeguarding concern, a medicines error, or a colleague’s poor practice; how they would reach a manager out of hours; and what changed after the last incident. Interview the registered manager about how they know what is happening at night and at weekends.
• Feedback from partners. Ask the GP practice, district nurses, the local authority quality team or commissioner what working with the service is like. If no one outside the service would know the manager’s name, that is a finding.
• Observation. A mealtime from start to finish; a medicines round; a morning when people are getting up; how staff speak to and about people; dignity and privacy during personal care; the environment, cleanliness, infection prevention and control, equipment and fire doors; whether call bells are answered.
• Processes. Track three people from assessment to care plan to daily notes to review: does the care given match the plan, and did the plan change after a fall or admission? Check medicines records against stock, incidents against notifications sent to CQC, recruitment files against the Schedule 3 information required under Regulation 19, the training matrix against the rota, and audits against their actions.
• Outcomes. Falls, pressure ulcers, weight loss, infections, hospital admissions and safeguarding referrals over the last twelve months, and whether anyone has looked at them together and acted on what they show.

Then read the findings against the quality statements CQC is likely to prioritise for the service type. For each statement assessed, note the strongest and weakest evidence, and give a provisional score on CQC’s 1 to 4 descriptors, clearly labelled as the provider’s own judgement.

Recording findings and the action plan

The report is the part that lasts. Write it within a week, in the same shape every time so that one rehearsal can be compared with the next: scope and method; who was spoken to; findings by quality statement, with the strengths and areas for improvement and the evidence for each; provisional scores; and an action plan with an owner, a deadline and what done will look like for every finding. Separate what must change at once, such as a risk to someone’s safety, from what can be planned. Anything that could be a notifiable event or a safeguarding concern is acted on and reported on the day, not saved for the report.

Close the loop in the way Regulation 17 asks. CQC’s guidance says providers “must monitor progress against plans to improve the quality and safety of services, and take appropriate action without delay where progress is not achieved as expected”, and “must be able to show how they have … used the information to make improvements and demonstrate that they have been made”. Check every action on its date, re-test the weakest findings at the next rehearsal, and give the provider or board the report and the action log, not a summary.

Four habits make a mock inspection worthless, and each is common:

• Building an inspection folder. CQC says it does not want providers “to prepare specific documents”. Evidence assembled for the day is evidence that it is not used on other days.
• Coaching answers. Staff who have been told what to say give an inspector nothing; staff who understand why they do what they do are the evidence.
• Rehearsing only the visit. CQC gathers evidence off site too, from people’s feedback, partners, data and evidence requests, and says inspections are no longer its “primary way to collect evidence”.
• A friendly assessor. A rehearsal that finds nothing has usually not looked.

The answer that lives on a phone

Run the staff interviews honestly and one answer comes back again and again. Asked how they would reach a manager at three in the morning, the night senior says she would message the deputy. Asked what happened after the last fall, a carer scrolls back through the staff group chat to find it. Asked how families raise concerns, the unit lead says most of them text her.

Those answers are good practice in the moment and a gap in the evidence. The mock inspector then asks to see the decision the deputy made at three in the morning, or what the family was told, and the only copy is on a personal phone in an app the provider cannot open. CQC asks for “information they already have”; the provider does not have it.

ComplyChat gives those conversations a channel the provider owns. A mobile number verified by SMS is the identity, so night staff, bank workers and families without a work account can take part; everyone in it is told it is on the record; and messages are recorded on the server as they are sent. On paid plans the lasting record files into the provider’s own Microsoft 365 once the tenant is connected, under its own retention rules. It is not an audit tool or an inspection system, and it will not run a mock inspection; it keeps the conversations a mock inspection keeps finding.

A question for the next governance or board meeting: in our last mock inspection, how many of the decisions staff described could we have shown from records the provider holds?

Questions people ask

What is the meaning of “mock inspection”?

A mock inspection is a rehearsal of a regulator’s inspection that an organisation runs on itself, or commissions from someone independent, to find gaps before the regulator does. In adult social care it means assessing the service against CQC’s key questions and quality statements, recording the findings and acting on them; it carries no status with CQC.

What are the 5 questions the CQC asks?

CQC’s five key questions are whether a service is safe, effective, caring, responsive to people’s needs and well-led. Its assessment framework sets quality statements under each, and a mock inspection should be organised around the same questions.

What does CQC look for during an inspection?

During an on-site visit CQC looks at care and how staff interact with people, the care environment, equipment and premises, and talks with people using the service, staff and leaders, as its guidance on how it gathers evidence describes. It weighs that alongside evidence gathered off site, such as people’s feedback, partner organisations’ views, data and records requested from the provider, and, under its current approach, scores each quality statement it assesses from 1 to 4; CQC has said it will remove scoring when its new approach takes effect.

What would trigger a CQC inspection?

Concerning information can trigger a CQC assessment at any time: CQC says “evidence we collect or information we receive at any time can trigger an assessment”, and that a site visit may be made without notice, “for example in response to a specific concern”. Other assessments are planned, in an order CQC says will be “based on the level of risk”.

What are the three types of CQC inspections?

CQC’s current guidance does not describe three types of inspection: it says a provider’s next assessment will be either planned or responsive, that evidence is gathered on site and off site, and that on-site visits may be unannounced.

Official guidance and your next step

Base any rehearsal on CQC’s own pages: the assessment framework and its quality statements; the evidence categories and the page for care homes and supported living; and its guidance on how it gathers evidence and how it reaches a rating. The duty behind it is Regulation 17 and CQC’s guidance on it. Quotations are from those pages as published on 3 October 2026.

This guide is a summary for providers in England, not legal advice and not a prediction of any inspection outcome.

Then do one thing: send your own service a one-line evidence request this morning – the decisions taken about the last three falls, with who made them and when – and see what comes back by tomorrow.