Table I.

Organisation of CQC hospital inspections

Ratings	Service areas	Typical site visit
Domains: Safety Effectiveness Caring Responsiveness Leadership	Children and young people Maternity and gynaecology Urgent and emergency services	Large team Sub-teams of 3-5 inspectors rate performance for each service area with regard to each domain. Sub-team membership:  Led by an experienced inspector employed by CQC  A doctor, a nurse and a manager with experience of the area  Patient advocate (“expert by experience”), trainee doctor or nurse in some sub-teams
Categories: Inadequate Requires improvement Good Outstanding	Outpatients and diagnostic imaging Surgery Medical care, including older people’s care Critical care End of life care	Typically 1-2 days inspection per hospital site. Announced in advance Investigate pertinent issues (“key lines of enquiry”), drawing on a generic list and statistics provided by CQC Twice daily “corroboration” discussion of likely ratings – within the sub-team and across the whole team Optional unannounced follow-up visit within 3 weeks to gather further data

Source: Adapted from Table I in Boyd et al. (2016)