The CQC Fundamental Standards, and What Evidences Each One

The CQC fundamental standards are, in CQC's own words, "the standards below which your care must never fall". There are 14. CQC checks you are likely to meet them when it registers you, and checks you still do when it assesses you.

Lists of the 14 are easy to find. What is harder to find is what each one asks of you, and which document or record proves you meet it. That is what follows.

The 14 CQC fundamental standards, and what evidences each

Person-centred care. Care tailored to the individual's needs and preferences. Evidenced by care plans that read like they are about one person, and by reviews that show the person's own words.

Visiting and accompanying. People in a care home, hospital or hospice should be able to have visitors, go out on visits, and be accompanied to appointments. Evidenced by a visiting policy that does not restrict beyond what is lawful and proportionate, and by records of how requests are handled.

Dignity and respect. Privacy when wanted, equal treatment, support to stay independent and involved in the community. Evidenced by your dignity policy, by observation, and by what staff say when asked.

Consent. Consent must be given by the person or someone legally acting for them before care is provided. Evidenced by consent records, capacity assessments, and best interest decision records where capacity is absent.

Safety. No unsafe care, and no avoidable risk of harm. Providers must assess risks and make sure staff have the qualifications, competence, skills and experience to keep people safe. Evidenced by risk assessments, incident records, and training and competency records.

Safeguarding from abuse. No abuse or improper treatment, including neglect, degrading treatment, unnecessary or disproportionate restraint, and inappropriate limits on freedom. Evidenced by your safeguarding policy, referrals made, training records, and your restrictive practice records.

Food and drink. Enough to eat and drink to stay in good health. Evidenced by nutrition and hydration assessments, food and fluid records, and weight monitoring where relevant.

Premises and equipment. Clean, suitable, properly looked after, secure and properly used. Evidenced by maintenance logs, servicing certificates, cleaning schedules and equipment checks.

Complaints. People must be able to complain, and you must have a system to handle, respond, investigate thoroughly and act. Evidenced by your complaints policy, the complaints log, and what changed as a result.

Good governance. Plans to meet the standards, effective governance, and systems to check quality and safety that drive improvement and reduce risk. Evidenced by your audit schedule, audit findings, action plans with owners and dates, and closed actions.

Staffing. Enough suitably qualified, competent and experienced staff, given the support, training and supervision they need. Evidenced by rotas against dependency, the training matrix, supervision records and appraisals.

Fit and proper staff. Only employ people who can provide care appropriate to their role, with strong recruitment procedures and relevant checks including criminal records and work history. Evidenced by personnel files: DBS, references, right to work, employment history and gaps explained.

Duty of candour. Be open and transparent. When something goes wrong, tell the person what happened, provide support and apologise. Evidenced by your duty of candour policy and, more importantly, by the records of occasions you applied it.

Display of ratings. Display your CQC rating where people can see it, include it on your website, and make the latest report available. Evidenced by the poster on the wall and the rating on your site.

Most standards ask for a record, not a policy

Read that list again and notice what most standards ask for: not a policy, but a record that the policy happened.

A safeguarding policy proves you know the rules, while a safeguarding referral with a date and an outcome proves you follow them. Inspectors ask for the second.

Services with good documents still get poor findings for this reason. The library is complete, and nothing in it has been used in a way anyone can see.

Four that catch services out

Good governance. The audit is done, the findings are written, and nothing closes. An action plan with no owner and no date is a finding, not a defence.

Fit and proper staff. Unexplained gaps in employment history, and references taken but never verified, are as easy for an inspector to spot as they are for you to fix.

Duty of candour. A policy exists, but there is no record of it ever being applied. Either nothing has gone wrong in the whole history of your service, which nobody believes, or it is not being used.

Display of ratings. Genuinely forgotten by services that do everything else well. It is on your website as well as your wall.

The one-line test for each standard

Take each of the 14 standards. Write beside it the single document or record you would hand over if an inspector asked you to prove it, today, without preparing anything.

Anywhere you write a policy name rather than a record, you have found a gap. Policies describe intent. Records prove practice.

Staff acknowledgement is the clearest example. A training matrix says people were booked on a course. A timestamped record of who read the policy and signed for it says they know what is in it. The free CQC policy checker will tell you what a single policy is missing before you go looking for the record.

Where to check the detail

CQC publishes the fundamental standards and the regulations behind them on its own site. Work from there for the letter of each standard, and use this article for what evidences it.

Sources

• CQC, "The fundamental standards of care", page last updated 3 March 2026.

Last checked: 21 September 2026.