CQC doesn't carry out fire risk assessments, and it doesn't judge fire safety technically. What an inspector checks is whether someone qualified to make that judgement already has — and whether the home has actually acted on what they found.
Where fire safety sits in CQC's framework
Fire safety is assessed under the "Safe" key question, within the "Safe environments" quality statement — detecting and controlling potential risks in the care environment, and making sure equipment, facilities and technology support safe care. It sits alongside Regulation 12 (Safe care and treatment) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, with the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 named as the relevant additional legislation. CQC is proposing a sector-specific framework that would replace the current quality statements with a smaller set of targeted questions — that consultation has closed but isn't yet in effect, so the structure above is what applies today.
What inspectors typically ask for
In practice, an inspector wants to see: a current fire risk assessment, not one sitting unreviewed from several years ago; evidence that its recommendations were actioned, not just filed; staff fire training records; and Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for individual residents. A report that exists but hasn't driven any changes doesn't satisfy this — CQC is checking for evidence of safe care, not for the existence of a document.
Common gaps CQC flags
The recurring pattern is less about a missing assessment and more about a stale or unactioned one: an FRA that's several review cycles overdue, findings from the last assessment that were never addressed, or PEEPs that haven't been updated as residents' needs changed — plans that, in a care home, usually sit alongside a progressive horizontal evacuation strategy. None of this needs scare-tactic framing to matter — a report that creates anxiety without direction, or restates generic findings instead of specific observations from the premises in front of the assessor, doesn't meet the standard of suitable and sufficient in the first place, and it won't hold up at inspection either.
How a SimplyNeat assessment supports an inspection
An assessment that's specific to the building and evidence-focused — naming what was found, why it matters, and what to do about it — is exactly what an inspector is looking for when they ask to see the paperwork behind "Safe." That's the same standard the assessment has to meet under the FSO; CQC readiness isn't a separate exercise, it's a consequence of getting the FRA right in the first place.