Statutory notifications are one of the few areas where a paperwork failure is itself an offence. Providers have been fined for not telling CQC things they dealt with perfectly well in person.
Once you are registered, the law requires you to tell CQC when certain things happen in your service. These statutory notifications are not good practice suggestions. They sit in the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009, failing to send them is an offence, and CQC has prosecuted and fined providers for exactly that, in cases where the care itself was not the problem.
Notifications also feed directly into how CQC sees your service. Assessors read your notification history before they look at anything else, and both silence and chaos raise flags: a service that never notifies looks like it is hiding things, and a service that notifies late looks like it lacks oversight. This guide covers what must be notified, when, and how to build a system that never misses one.
The notifications and where they come from
The core duties sit in Regulations 14 to 18 of the 2009 Registration Regulations:
- Regulation 14, notice of absence: tells CQC when a registered manager will be, or has been, absent for a continuous period of 28 days or more, and what the management arrangements are in the meantime.
- Regulation 15, notice of changes: covers changes such as to the provider’s details or other matters set out in the regulation.
- Regulation 16, notification of the death of a service user. This must be sent without delay.
- Regulation 17, notification of the death or unauthorised absence of a person detained or liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983.
- Regulation 18, notification of other incidents. This is the busiest one, covering among other things serious injuries to a person using the service, allegations of abuse, incidents reported to or investigated by the police, events that stop or threaten to stop the service running safely, and the outcomes of applications to deprive a person of their liberty.
The statutory timing language for the incident notifications is “without delay”. In practice that means as soon as you reasonably can once you know about the event, not at the end of the week when the paperwork is quiet.
The incidents providers most often miss
- Allegations of abuse. Providers refer to the local authority safeguarding team and assume that covers it. It does not. The safeguarding referral and the CQC notification are separate duties, and both are needed.
- Police involvement. Any incident reported to or investigated by the police in connection with the service is notifiable, including incidents where the person you support is the alleged victim rather than the cause.
- Serious injuries. Falls with fractures are the classic example. If the injury meets the threshold in the regulation, it is notifiable even where no one did anything wrong.
- Deprivation of liberty outcomes. You notify CQC of the outcome of applications. The case law on deprivation of liberty changed significantly in 2026, and the assessments behind applications have shifted with it, but the duty to notify outcomes has not gone anywhere.
- Events disrupting the service. Floods, fires, major staffing failures and anything else that stops the service running safely belong on a notification, not just in your business continuity log.
What good looks like operationally
Missed notifications are almost never a knowledge problem. Managers know deaths and abuse allegations are notifiable. They are a systems problem: the incident happens at the weekend, the manager is on leave, everyone assumes someone else sent it. A reliable system has four parts:
- A trigger list on one page, pinned where incidents are recorded, so the person logging an incident sees immediately whether it is notifiable.
- Named responsibility with a deputy. The registered manager owns notifications, and a named senior sends them when the manager is away.
- Submission through CQC’s provider portal, with the reference and a copy saved against the incident record.
- A monthly cross-check in your governance audit: every incident in the log reviewed against the trigger list, every notification accounted for. This closes the loop and creates exactly the evidence trail a well-led assessment wants to see.
Writing a notification well
The regulations tell you when to notify. They say little about how, and the quality of what you write matters, because notifications become part of the permanent record CQC holds about your service and may be reread months later by an assessor deciding what kind of provider you are.
A well-written notification does four things. It states the facts in order, dates, times, people involved by role, what happened and what was found, without speculation about causes you have not yet established. It shows the immediate response: what was done for the person, who was informed, what was made safe. It names the parallel actions, the safeguarding referral, the police report, the family conversation, the duty of candour letter, so CQC can see the whole response rather than a fragment. And it closes with the follow-up you have set in motion, the investigation underway, the interim measures, the review date.
Common drafting faults to avoid: copying a staff member’s raw incident narrative into the form, complete with opinions and names that should not be there; minimising language, “slight altercation”, “small error”, that reads badly next to the eventual investigation findings; and promising follow-up actions you then cannot evidence. Write every notification on the assumption that an inspector will one day read it alongside your incident file and check the two against each other, because that is precisely what happens.
Keep your own copy of every submission with its acknowledgement, indexed against the incident record. When the assessment conversation turns to an event from ten months ago, the provider who can produce the notification, the investigation and the completed actions in one folder is having a very different conversation from the provider reconstructing events from memory.
Notifications and your assessment
Assessors use notifications as a window into your governance. A pattern of similar incidents with no evidence of learning invites obvious questions. So does an incident an inspector hears about on site that never reached CQC. On the other side, prompt notifications with clear follow-up actions are some of the cheapest positive evidence available to a provider: they show a service that knows what is happening inside itself and tells the truth about it. The same events also engage the duty of candour with the people affected, which is a separate obligation under Regulation 20 of the 2014 Regulations and worth auditing alongside.
What to do now
- Print the notification trigger list from your policy, check it against Regulations 14 to 18, and fix any gaps, especially police involvement and deprivation of liberty outcomes.
- Confirm who sends notifications when the registered manager is off, and that they have working portal access today.
- Audit the last three months of your incident log against notifications sent. If you find a missed one, take advice, then deal with it honestly.
- Add the monthly notification cross-check to your governance audit schedule.
How Cura Compliance can help
Our CuraFlow policy libraries include a notifications policy with the full trigger list mapped to the regulations, kept current as the law moves. Our mock inspection service audits your incident log against your notification history the way an inspector would, before an inspector does. And if you are still
pres-registration, our CQC registration support service builds the notification system into your application evidence from the start.
Frequently asked questions
What is a CQC statutory notification?
A report the law requires a registered provider to send CQC when specified events happen, under Regulations 14 to 18 of the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009. They include deaths, serious injuries, abuse allegations, police incidents, deprivation of liberty outcomes and events disrupting the service.
How quickly must a CQC notification be sent?
For deaths and other incidents the regulations require notification without delay, which in practice means as soon as reasonably possible once you are aware of the event. Batching notifications for the end of the week does not meet the duty.
Do I still notify CQC if I have referred to safeguarding?
Yes. The local authority safeguarding referral and the CQC notification are separate legal duties. An abuse allegation normally needs both.
What happens if I fail to send a statutory notification?
Failure to notify is an offence, and CQC can and does take enforcement action, including fixed penalties and prosecution. It also damages the picture of your governance at assessment, which affects ratings.
Do notifications apply to domiciliary care and supported living?
Yes. The duties apply to registered providers across service types, including community services. The events happen in people’s own homes rather than on your premises, which makes the reporting system and staff awareness even more important.
Who in the organisation is allowed to send a notification?
The duty sits with the registered person, in practice the registered manager or provider, but the regulations do not stop a delegated senior submitting on their behalf. What matters is that the registered manager knows what has been sent, and that your system never leaves notifications waiting on one person’s availability.
Sources
- The Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009, Regulations 14 to 18 (legislation.gov.uk, accessed September 2026)
- CQC guidance on statutory notifications (cqc.org.uk, accessed September 2026)