CQC registration for your care home, made simple
A residential or nursing home in England must be registered with CQC for accommodation for persons who require nursing or personal care before the first resident moves in, with a registered manager in place and the home itself as the registered location. For CQC care home registration, we prepare your applications, policies, premises risk assessments and interview from £1,995, then stay with you until CQC makes its decision.
Who needs CQC registration for a care home
Accommodation for persons who require nursing or personal care is the regulated activity every care home registers for. In law it means providing residential accommodation together with nursing or personal care, and CQC applies it where the two come as a single package, so a resident cannot choose another provider for their personal care while living there. Carrying it on without registration is an offence under section 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
The same activity covers residential homes and homes with nursing, and you do not register separately for personal care or nursing care. Nursing care means care given, planned, supervised or delegated by a registered nurse, in other words a nurse on the NMC register. CQC’s scope guidance says a care home with nursing is likely to need treatment of disease, disorder or injury as well, because its nurses carry out or supervise treatment. A home without nursing should not register for it, as clinical tasks there are delegated by a nurse who works for another provider, such as a district nursing service.
Diagnostic and screening procedures is needed far less often. Taking blood or urine samples, dipstick testing and swabs need no extra activity once you are registered for another one. It applies to procedures such as X-ray or ultrasound to examine the body, or ambulatory equipment that monitors a body system to plan care, so we check your equipment and procedures with you on the scoping call.
Read the legal definitions (Regulated Activities Regulations 2014, Schedule 1)Care home or supported living?
It turns on whether the housing and the care are tied together. Supported living needs a real separation between the tenancy and the care agreement, and the provider registers its office for personal care. If taking your care is a condition of living there, CQC is likely to treat the service as a care home, whatever it is called.
The home is the location
CQC registers the care home itself as a location, because people live there and receive their care there. Each home goes on your application and Statement of Purpose in its own right, although buildings close together that share a manager and staff can be one location. Adding a home later means applying to vary your registration.
Homes for autistic people and people with a learning disability
CQC expects the model to follow its guidance Right support, right care, right culture, and encourages you to talk to it early, before your plans are fixed. You also send positive behaviour support and restraint policies and complete CQC’s additional form for these services.
Running home care as well
If your staff will also give personal care to people in their own homes, that service is separate from the care home, so you register for personal care too. Your Statement of Purpose and policies then have to cover both.
Registered as a care home
- Residential homes giving personal care, for example to older people or people living with dementia
- Nursing homes, where registered nurses give, plan or supervise care
- Respite and short stays with care, away from the person’s usual home
- Homes for autistic people, people with a learning disability or people with mental health needs, where the room and the care come together
- Housing where the tenancy or contract ties residents to one care provider
Not the care home activity
- Supported living, where people hold their own tenancy and can choose who provides their care
- Extra care housing, where people rent or buy their own home and the care is arranged separately
- Shared lives arrangements, which register for personal care instead
- Residential treatment for drug or alcohol misuse, which is a separate regulated activity
- Accommodation in a school
Everything you need for CQC care home registration
Written for your home, not a template pack. Stage 1 is what CQC needs with your application. Stage 2 is the set of documents CQC tells care homes to keep ready, plus your interview preparation.
Your application pack
Required from every provider
- Statement of Purpose
- Safeguarding policy and procedure
- Medicines management policy, including transporting medication
- Infection prevention and control policy
- Recruitment policy
- Complaints policy
- Consent policy and procedure
- Equality, diversity and human rights policy
- Governance and quality assurance policies
Extra for care homes
- Business continuity plan
- Environment risk assessment and Legionella risk assessment, completed with your site details
- Service user guide
- Staff training plan
- Positive behaviour support and restraint policies, where you support autistic people or people with a learning disability
- Provider and registered manager forms, completed with you
Assessment, interview and follow-up
- Business plan and financial forecast, kept ready for CQC
- Duty of candour, whistleblowing, reportable incidents and risk management policies
- Initial assessment and admission, person-centred care planning, and premises safety and security policies
- A list of risk assessments, a sample care plan, and your staffing structure and rotas
- Registered manager interview question and answer pack
- Two-hour mock interview with written feedback
- Follow-up with CQC on your behalf until a decision is made
- Appeal support if your application is challenged
What a care home application has to prove
A care home application is read for the building as closely as for the care, so these are the points we settle with you before you submit.
Premises evidence for the home
You send evidence of legal occupancy, a floor plan, gas and electrical safety certificates issued within the last 12 months, and planning permission showing the use class, such as C2 for residential care. If the building needed building regulations approval, for example a new build or conversion, CQC also needs the building control final certificate.
Fire and Legionella actions completed
Your current fire risk assessment has to cover evacuation for residents who need help, including personal emergency evacuation plans. CQC expects the actions in it, and in your Legionella risk assessment, to be completed before you apply, with someone named as responsible for Legionella control.
A registered manager ready for interview
A company must have a registered manager, and their application goes in with yours. Their enhanced DBS check, with the barred list for the people you will support, must be no more than 12 months old, or CQC rejects the application without further review. Unless they are on a register such as the NMC’s, it must be a CQC countersigned check.
Nurses on the NMC register
If you provide nursing, your recruitment policy should show how you check each nurse’s registration on the NMC register using their PIN. Your staffing plan also has to show enough suitably qualified staff, nurses included, for the people you plan to admit, which CQC assesses under regulation 18.
Deprivation of liberty, under the new test
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards apply in care homes. The home must request a standard authorisation from the local authority for a resident who lacks capacity and is, or will soon be, deprived of liberty, then notify CQC of the outcome. After the Supreme Court’s June 2026 judgment, the government has told care homes to update their policies to the court’s new, multifactorial test.
No financial viability statement
Care homes do not send CQC a financial viability statement. Instead, you keep a business plan and financial forecast ready, with the other documents CQC may ask a care home for during assessment, such as a sample care plan and staffing rotas.
Five steps from first call to certificate
Our part is fast. CQC’s assessment sets the overall timescale, and we stay with you through it.
Scoping and onboarding
We confirm your regulated activities, including whether nursing brings in treatment, then give you a checklist of what only you can get: DBS checks, legal occupancy, floor plan, safety certificates, fire risk assessment, planning permission and insurance.
Stage 1 pack
Your policies, Statement of Purpose, service user guide, training plan, business continuity plan and premises risk assessments, as soon as your requirements are met.
Submission
We check everything first, then support you to send the provider and registered manager applications to CQC.
Visit and interview
CQC may ask for more documents, interview your manager and visit the home. We prepare the documents it may request, an interview pack and a two-hour mock interview with written feedback.
Decision
You receive your certificate of registration and can then open your home to residents.
One package, paid in two halves
Our fee covers both stages. The regulator’s fee and your set-up costs are separate, so budget for them too.
CQC registration package
Or pay in full and take 10% off.
Also budget for
Paid to others, not to us. CQC itself charges no application fee.
- CQC annual fee, charged once you are registered and based on the type and size of your service
- Public and employer’s liability insurance
- Enhanced DBS checks for your registered manager and staff
- A competent person’s fire risk assessment, and gas and electrical safety certificates
- Planning permission or change of use, and building control sign-off for a new build or conversion
- ICO data protection fee
If CQC rejects or returns your application before it reaches an inspector, we fix it and resubmit at no extra cost, as many times as it takes. Subject to our terms and conditions.
Buy single documents instead
Business continuity plan
An editable plan template covering staffing, premises, utilities, IT, medicines and suppliers, with recovery and review records. Care homes send one with the application.
Statement of Purpose
A Statement of Purpose written for your home, with your provider, location, manager and regulated activity details.
Registered manager interview prep
Practice questions, answer guidance and feedback for the CQC registered manager interview, on its own.
CQC registration for a care home: your questions
Do I need CQC registration to open a care home?
Does a nursing home need more than one regulated activity?
What is the difference between a care home and supported living?
What premises evidence does CQC need for a care home?
How long does CQC registration for a care home take, and what does it cost?
What happens if CQC sends my application back?
Ready to register your care home?
No obligation. We confirm the regulated activities your home needs, including whether nursing brings in treatment of disease, disorder or injury, and what you still have to get, as well as a realistic timeline.