When the Care Quality Commission assesses an adult social care service in England, it is not looking for a binder created the week before the visit. It is looking for evidence that people are safe, that care is effective, caring and responsive, and that the service is well led.
CQC’s assessment framework is built around those five key questions and a set of quality statements beneath them. Evidence is grouped into categories such as people’s experience, feedback from staff and leaders, feedback from partners, observation, processes and outcomes. The practical implication for providers is straightforward: the strongest evidence is usually the work you already do every day, if you can find it and show how it connects.
That is why Pelp Manager is being designed around oversight of live records, not around a separate inspection folder.
What CQC is actually assessing
CQC asks whether services are safe, effective, caring, responsive and well led. Quality statements describe what good looks like in those areas. They replaced the older key lines of enquiry, but the underlying expectation has not changed: people should receive person-centred care, and leaders should know what is happening in their service.
CQC gathers evidence on site and off site. It may look at different evidence categories depending on the type of service and the quality statement being assessed. Lists of evidence categories are a guide, not a checklist. Inspectors still use professional judgement, and since late 2024 CQC has been scoring at quality statement level rather than treating each evidence category as a separate score in the published report.
Why a last-minute evidence scramble fails
Many services still treat inspection preparation as a project: printing notes, chasing missing signatures, rewriting care plans and hoping nothing important is buried in an email thread. That approach creates two problems. It exhausts managers, and it produces a polished picture that may not match what staff and Individuals experience on an ordinary Tuesday.
CQC continues to ask adult social care providers for an annual Provider Information Return, and assessments can be planned or responsive. If information of concern arrives, the service needs to show what it knew, when it knew it and what it did. That trail lives in everyday notes, incidents, reviews and actions, not in a one-off summary written afterwards.
Everyday records that become useful evidence
Good evidence is specific. It shows who was supported, what happened, what the person preferred, what risk was considered, who reviewed it and what changed as a result.
- Daily care notes that describe the person, not only the task list
- Care plans and risk assessments with clear review dates and version history
- Incident and safeguarding records that show triage, investigation and learning
- Handovers and tasks that prove information moved between shifts
- Family or representative involvement where it was appropriate and agreed
- Manager actions on overdue reviews, incomplete records and open incidents
Children’s services have parallel expectations
Pelp is being built for adult and children’s social care. In children’s homes in England, Ofsted and the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 set their own recording and quality duties. Regulation 44 requires monthly independent visits and reports on safeguarding and wellbeing. Regulation 45 requires the registered person to review the quality of care at least every six months, maintain a monitoring system that includes children’s and others’ views, and share the written report with Ofsted.
Those reviews depend on the same foundation as CQC evidence: up-to-date case records, clear incident and behaviour information, and a management view of what needs attention. A system that only works for adult residential care will not serve providers who also run children’s homes or supported accommodation.
How Pelp Manager is being built for oversight
Pelp Manager is the product we are building for Registered Managers and authorised senior staff. The idea is a working view of the service: what needs attention now, and a short path to the underlying records.
- An operational dashboard for overdue assessments, reviews, incidents and incomplete documentation
- Individual profiles that connect notes, plans, risks, health information and history
- Incident and safeguarding workflows from report through to closure and lessons learned
- Document drafting, approval and version history for professional reports
- Preparation support for CQC and Ofsted evidence drawn from those everyday records
- Permissions and audit trails so it is clear who wrote, changed, approved or viewed sensitive information
What we are careful not to claim
No care app makes a service compliant by itself. CQC and Ofsted judge the quality of care and leadership, not the brand of software on a phone. Pelp does not replace professional judgement, local policies or the provider’s legal responsibilities.
We also do not claim CQC approval, Ofsted endorsement or any certification we have not earned. What we are building is a way to keep evidence close to the work: record well during the shift, connect it around the Individual, and give managers a clearer line of sight before anyone asks for a report.