How to use the
Inspection Readiness Dashboard
This guide walks you through everything inside the dashboard — from your first audit to exporting an inspection-ready report — all from your Carevia Pro+ members area.
Accessing the dashboard
The Inspection Readiness Dashboard is available directly in your Carevia Pro+ members area — no download or installation required.Log in to your Carevia account and navigate to the Inspection Readiness Dashboard page in your members area. The tool loads instantly in your browser and is fully self-contained.
Because the tool is embedded in your members area, it is always the latest version. Any improvements Carevia makes — new prompts, updated frameworks, new features — are available to you automatically the next time you open the page. There is nothing to download or update manually.
Which browser should I use? Chrome or Edge give the best experience. Safari and Firefox work well too. The tool is designed for desktop use — a wider screen gives you the best view of the full dashboard layout.
Setting up your audit record
Before answering any prompts, spend a few minutes completing the setup fields at the top of the page. This builds your audit trail and populates all exported reports.Service name — enter the name of your service. This appears on every exported report and the printed header.
People completing the audit — click + Add person for each person involved in completing the audit. For each person, record their name, job title or role, and the date they completed their section.
Once you’ve added a person, click the Quality Statements completed dropdown to select exactly which QS they worked on. QS are grouped by domain so you can tick them off efficiently. This creates your audit trail and feeds the contributor summary in the Summary tab.
You can add as many people as needed — deputies, senior care workers, clinical leads, and so on. There’s no limit.
Choosing your audit scope
Use Domain Focus Mode to restrict the audit to specific domains — useful if you’re working in phases or focusing on a particular area ahead of inspection.Just below the people section, you’ll see the Audit Scope bar with a coloured toggle button for each of the five domains. By default, all five are active.
Click any domain button to deactivate it — it will appear unselected and that domain’s tab will be hidden from the navigation. This is useful if you want to complete a focused Safe review, for example, without the other domains cluttering your view.
Click Select all domains to restore the full five-domain view at any time. Your data is not affected when you toggle domains — it’s only the visible scope that changes.
Working through the prompts
The core of the audit. Each domain tab contains its Quality Statements, each broken into focused prompts. Work through them honestly — this is self-assessment, not inspection.Click on a domain tab — Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive, or Well-Led — to open that domain’s Quality Statements and prompts.
Each prompt card shows the question. Select your response using the three buttons:
- Yes — fully in place with evidence you can point to
- Partial — in progress, inconsistent, or partially met
- No — not yet in place or a known gap
Your answers are saved automatically as you go. The progress counter in each tab updates in real time, and the overall percentage in the top bar reflects your total completion.
Don’t leave prompts blank. Even answering No with a note is more useful than skipping — it means you’ve identified and acknowledged the gap, which is exactly what CQC expects to see under a learning culture.
Adding evidence & action plans
Expand any prompt card to unlock a full evidence and action planning section. This is where the audit becomes inspection-ready documentation.Click anywhere on a prompt card (or the ▾ Expand button at the bottom) to open the detail panel. You’ll find the following fields:
- 1Evidence — describe the evidence that exists. Be specific: audit names, dates, document references, staff training records.
- 2Notes — any context, caveats, or observations that don’t fit as formal evidence.
- 3Action required — what needs to happen to close a gap or strengthen the position.
- 4Owner — who is responsible for completing the action.
- 5Due date — when the action should be completed by.
- 6Success criteria — how you’ll know the action has worked.
- 7Status — Not started · In progress · Completed · ✓ Tested · ★ Embedded. See Step 7 for what Tested and Embedded mean.
RAG ratings & outstanding flags
Two additional tools for prioritisation — RAG ratings power the Priority Matrix, and Outstanding flags feed the Evidence Showcase.Inside the expanded prompt card, you’ll find a RAG rating selector and an ⭐ Outstanding button.
RAG ratings go beyond Yes/Partial/No to indicate your confidence level and risk:
- Green — confident, evidence is held, no significant risk
- Amber — partially in place, some gaps, monitored
- Red — known gap, risk identified, action required
Red RAG ratings combined with No or Partial answers push items into the Priority — Act Now quadrant of the Priority Matrix in the Summary tab.
Outstanding flags — if a prompt represents practice that is genuinely exceptional and might attract an Outstanding rating from CQC, click the ⭐ Outstanding button. These items are pulled through to the Evidence Showcase.
RAOF & SMART-TE New
The RAOF panel connects directly to SMART-TE action tracking — use it to verify that actions have worked before marking them Tested or Embedded.Inside each expanded prompt, below the action fields, you’ll find the RAOF — Test & Embed this Action panel. Use it before marking any action as Tested or Embedded.
What is SMART-TE? It is a Carevia evolution of the traditional SMART framework, adding two final steps: Tested (evidence confirms the action worked in practice) and Embedded (the improvement is sustained consistently — not just completed once). Completing an action and closing the loop on an action are two different things.
Use the RAOF cycle to close that loop before signing off:
- Read — does the documentation confirm the change was made?
- Ask — do staff understand and follow the change?
- Observe — is it visible in practice, not just on paper?
- Feedforward — is it embedded consistently across the team?
Mark Practice aligned in the Feedforward section when the improvement is genuinely embedded. Mark Drift detected if documentation and practice don’t match — this flags the item into the Drift Monitor for active monitoring.
Share with your team
Download a printable question set to distribute audit prompts across your team — without sharing access to the tool itself.Go to the Summary & Actions tab and click 👥 Team Question Set. This downloads a clean, branded HTML file containing every audit prompt grouped by domain and quality statement, with space for notes alongside each question.
Share it with deputies, senior staff, clinical leads, or your Nominated Individual so they can gather evidence and observations from across the service. Their completed responses feed back into the dashboard — you record the answers on their behalf.
The question set contains prompts and note space only. It does not include scoring, action planning, RAOF fields, or any member-only functionality. The full intelligence of the tool stays in your members area.
Adding your own prompts
Tailor the audit to your service type, current inspection themes, or known areas of scrutiny.At the bottom of each Quality Statement section, you’ll find a + Add a service-specific prompt field. Type your prompt and press Enter or click Add — it will appear as a new card within that QS, with all the same evidence, action, and RAOF fields as the built-in prompts.
This is particularly useful if your service:
- Has recently received a CQC requirement or recommendation and wants to track it explicitly
- Operates a specialist service (learning disabilities, acquired brain injury, end of life) with additional specific standards to evidence
- Has an internal governance theme you want to embed into the self-assessment cycle
- Supports a client group with needs not fully covered by the standard prompts
Custom prompts are saved alongside your other data and appear in exports.
Sign-offs & governance
Two formal sign-off mechanisms that create governance evidence — particularly valuable for Well-Led and for demonstrating oversight at provider level.Manager QA sampling sign-off — the registered manager can formally sign off Quality Statements they did not directly audit. Click + Add QA sign-off, enter your name, role, and date, select the QS you’ve reviewed, add any comments, and click I confirm and sign off. Once confirmed, the record locks.
Senior sign-off — an Ops Manager, Regional Director, or Nominated Individual (where separate from the RM) can add an overarching governance sign-off. Click + Add senior sign-off, complete the fields, add overall comments and optional per-domain notes, then use the senior declaration to formally confirm.
Both sign-off records appear in the Summary tab and in all exported reports as formal governance evidence.
The Summary & Actions tab
Your real-time inspection readiness dashboard — visit it regularly as you complete the audit. Everything updates automatically.Click the Summary & Actions tab in the navigation bar. You’ll find everything consolidated in one place — there’s nothing to compile manually.
- ↑Readiness score & CQC rating estimate — your weighted percentage score and an estimated CQC rating based on response distribution.
- →RAOF alignment bar — shows how many reflections are completed vs outstanding, and how many areas have drift detected.
- !Drift Monitor Risk Table — lists every prompt where practice drift was flagged, with domain, action, owner, and due date.
- ★Strongest QS / Areas needing attention — automatically identifies your highest and lowest scoring Quality Statements.
- ⊞Priority Matrix — QS plotted by score vs risk level. Focus on the top-left quadrant first.
- Action ownership dashboard — all actions grouped by owner so you can see who has what outstanding.
- Full action log — every logged action across all QS in one place, with SMART-TE status, owner, and due date.
Saving your progress & exporting
The tool auto-saves in your browser — but use Save Progress regularly to keep a portable backup and to move your data between devices.The quick action bar at the top of the Summary tab contains all save and export options.
Save Progress (.json)
Downloads a complete backup of all your data. Use this to transfer your progress to another device or browser, or to keep a dated record of each audit cycle. Save regularly.
Load Progress
Restores a previously saved .json file. Use this to pick up where you left off on a different device, or to hand the audit to a colleague to continue.
HTML Report
Generates a full inspection-ready report as a standalone HTML file — cover page, domain overview, QS detail, evidence, action log, SMART-TE statuses, contributor summary, and sign-off records.
CSV Export
Downloads a spreadsheet containing the full QS detail, action register including SMART-TE status, and contributor/sign-off data. Useful for governance meetings.
Team Question Set
Downloads a printable prompt sheet to share with your team. Contains every audit question with note space — no scoring or tool functionality. See Step 8.
Calendar (.ics)
Generates a calendar file with one event per action that has a due date. Import into Outlook, Google Calendar, or Apple Calendar to track deadlines.
Comparing audits over time
The Compare Progress tab lets you load a previous audit backup and see exactly what has changed — domain by domain and QS by QS.Click the Compare Progress tab. You’ll be prompted to load a previous .json backup file. Once loaded, the tab displays a side-by-side comparison of your current audit against the previous one — highlighting improvements, declines, and new areas since the last cycle.
- Demonstrating continuous improvement to CQC during inspection
- Governance reporting — showing progress against actions from the previous cycle
- Team updates — making learning and improvement visible to staff
- Provider-level oversight — tracking progress across multiple audit cycles
We recommend completing a full self-assessment at least quarterly and saving a dated .json backup each time. This builds a longitudinal record of your improvement journey.
The Evidence Showcase tab
Your inspection preparation view — a curated summary of strengths, completed improvements, evidence gaps, and areas of drift, organised for easy reference ahead of a visit.Click the Evidence Showcase tab. Everything here is populated automatically from your audit data.
- ★Outstanding practice — all prompts flagged as potentially outstanding.
- ✓Evidenced strengths — prompts answered Yes with Green RAG and evidence recorded.
- RPractice aligned (RAOF) — all RAOF reflections where practice is confirmed aligned.
- ↑Completed improvements — actions marked Completed, Tested, or Embedded. Your evidence of continuous improvement.
- !Managed risks — Amber RAG items with action plans in place.
- !Evidence gaps — No answers or Red RAG items without actions. These need addressing before inspection.
- FRAOF Feedforward — all leadership reflections with feedforward notes.
- ~Drift Monitor — all areas flagged as practice drift. Review and address before any CQC visit.
Data privacy & storage
Everything you enter stays in your browser. Understanding how the tool stores data helps you protect your progress.All data stays in your browser
The Inspection Readiness Dashboard uses your browser’s local storage to save your data. Nothing is transmitted to Carevia, any third party, or any server at any point — before, during, or after your session.
What this means in practice: your data is stored in the browser on the device you are using. Clearing your browser history or cache will delete your progress. Always use Save Progress to keep a .json backup, and use Load Progress to restore it on a different device or browser.
If you record personal data — for example, staff names as action owners — you are the data controller for that information. Handle it in line with your organisation’s GDPR and data protection policies. We recommend using job titles rather than personal names where possible.
No cookies, no tracking, no analytics are used by this tool at any point.