CQC Consultancy and Compliance Support for Care Providers
Care Sync Experts is a CQC consultancy for adult social care providers in England. We work with domiciliary care agencies, supported living services and care homes on registration, inspection readiness, the evidence behind each quality statement, and the short deadlines that follow a draft report or an enforcement notice. Consultancy starts at £1,000 plus VAT a month, and a CQC registration package is a fixed £4,000 plus VAT.
What CQC Consultancy Costs
Care Sync Experts provides CQC consultancy from £1,000 plus VAT a month, a CQC registration package at a fixed £4,000 plus VAT, and CQC mock inspections from £1,000 plus VAT. We publish the starting figures so you can assess fit before booking a call.
CQC consultancy and ongoing compliance support
From £1,000 plus VAT a month
Independent review, the evidence behind each quality statement, governance that holds up when it is looked at, and someone to call when a letter arrives.
CQC registration package
£4,000 plus VAT, fixed
Scoping the regulated activities, the statement of purpose, the supporting documents, the application itself and the fit person interview.
What registration support includesCQC mock inspection
From £1,000 plus VAT
Your service scored against the quality statements the way CQC scores it, with the percentage and the rating band it lands in.
How a mock inspection is scoredWhat moves the price
One piece of work or ongoing support
A single review is priced as a project. Retained support is priced by the month, and the two are quoted differently because they cost us differently.
How many locations and activities
Each registered location has its own records, its own staff and its own people, so each one adds to the work rather than sharing it.
Whether there is a deadline attached
Work with a fixed date on it, a draft report, a notice or a review request, is priced for the turnaround it needs rather than the calendar we would prefer.
Your current rating
A service holding Good and aiming higher needs a different piece of work from one that has been rated Inadequate and has conditions to answer.
Whether we come to you
A desktop review of records and governance costs less than a review that includes a visit, staff interviews and observation of practice.
How much we do and how much you do
Some providers want the findings and will act on them. Others want the work done. The second costs more and is worth deciding before you start, not halfway through.
If your service falls outside the shape described here, say so and we will tell you before you commit to anything rather than after. Prices exclude VAT and exclude CQC's own fees, which are set by CQC and paid to CQC.
What a CQC Consultant Actually Does
A CQC consultant is an independent specialist who helps a registered provider meet the requirements of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and the regulations made under it. In practice that means getting you registered, keeping your evidence in a state an inspector can follow, testing you before an assessment, and answering formally when CQC writes to you. It is not advocacy and it is not a shortcut through the regulator.
Scoping what you are registered for
Which regulated activities you hold, whether they still match what you actually deliver, and whether a change of scope or a new location needs an application rather than a notification.
Building the evidence behind each quality statement
CQC assesses quality statements and gathers evidence under six categories. Most services have the evidence and cannot produce it on the day. We map what you hold against what is assessed and fill the gaps.
Testing you before CQC does
A mock inspection scored the way CQC scores, so you find the quality statement sitting at a 1 before an inspector does, rather than reading about it in a draft report.
Governance that survives being looked at
Audits that are completed rather than filed, actions that close, incidents that lead somewhere, and a set of records a registered manager can hand over without a covering explanation.
Responding when the letter arrives
Draft reports, Warning Notices and rating process reviews have different purposes and deadlines. Check the date on the notice and the current CQC guidance as soon as it arrives.
Preparing the people who get asked
The registered manager, the nominated individual and the staff an inspector will speak to. Knowing the evidence is not the same as being able to describe it under questioning.
When to Bring in a CQC Consultant
Three of the moments that matter most run to fixed deadlines, counted in working days. If a draft report, notice or published rating needs a response, check its date and the current CQC guidance immediately.
10 working days
A draft report lands
You have 10 working days from the date of CQC's email to submit factual accuracy comments on the draft report. Use the process to identify factual errors and provide relevant supporting evidence.
CQC factual accuracy guidance10 working days
A Warning Notice is served
Representations against a Warning Notice must be made within 10 working days of service. CQC has no legally set timescale to reply and aims for 20 working days.
CQC Warning Notice guidance15 working days
A rating you think is wrong is published
A rating process review must be requested within 15 working days of publication, and you get one request. It is not an appeal against the judgement: CQC will not review a rating on the basis that you disagree with its reasoning, its scores or the rating itself. It has to be about the process not being followed.
CQC rating process review guidanceThe quieter reasons providers call us
- You are registering a new service and want the application to survive first reading
- You have never been assessed under CQC's current assessment framework
- You have been rated Requires Improvement or Inadequate and have a timetable to meet
- Your registered manager has left, or a new one is going into a fit person interview
- You are adding a location or a regulated activity
- You are being asked for evidence and cannot find it quickly enough
Each deadline above links to the relevant Care Quality Commission guidance. Check the current guidance and the notice you received before relying on a date. If a letter is already with you, tell us the date on it rather than the date you read it.
How to Choose a CQC Consultant
Five questions worth putting to anyone you are considering, including us. They are the questions that separate an assessment you can act on from an afternoon and an invoice.
1. What do I get in writing?
A verbal debrief cannot be handed to a registered manager, worked through by a team or shown to an inspector. Ask what the deliverable is and ask to see the shape of one.
2. Are you scoring me, or telling me how it felt?
CQC scores each quality statement 1 to 4 and converts the total into a percentage and a rating band. An assessment that does not produce a score cannot tell you which band you are in or what is holding you there.
3. Who is doing the work, and are they the person I met?
Ask who attends, who writes the report and who you speak to afterwards. It is a fair question and a straight answer is easy to give.
4. What happens after the report?
Findings are the easy half. Ask whether support to close the gaps is included, charged separately, or not offered, and get that clear before you commit rather than after.
5. What are you not going to do?
A consultant cannot speak to CQC on your behalf as though they were you, cannot change a rating by asking, and cannot make a service safe from the outside. Anyone unwilling to say what is outside their control is worth a second look.
What we will not tell you
No consultant can guarantee a rating, guarantee a registration, or promise a particular outcome from an assessment. CQC decides both, on its own evidence, and it publishes the method it uses to get there. What an independent review can do is show you what that method would find in your service now, while there is still time to do something about it. Anyone offering you the outcome itself is selling you something they do not own.
Read CQC's current rating methodConsultancy, Registration or a Mock Inspection
These are three different jobs and people arrive looking for all of them. This page is the ongoing one: staying compliant, being ready, and answering CQC when it writes to you. If you are actually after one of the other two, go straight there.
You are not registered yet
Everything from scoping the regulated activities to the fit person interview is registration work, and it has its own page with the fees, the timescales and the documents CQC asks for.
CQC registration supportYou are registered and want to know where you stand
An independent review scored against the quality statements, with the percentage and the rating band it lands in, before CQC does the same thing.
CQC mock inspectionsYou want to understand the rules first
What compliance means, what the fundamental standards require and how CQC assesses a service, written for providers rather than for regulators.
CQC compliance guidanceFrequently asked questions
Still have questions?
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