CQC statutory notifications
Reviewed September 2026 · Written by Complys and checked against CQC's published guidance and the regulations (sources below).
Some things that happen in a care service, CQC has to be told about — by law, as they happen, whether or not they reflect well on the service. These are statutory notifications, and they are one of the clearest tests of whether a provider is genuinely open. Getting them wrong is not a minor administrative slip: a failure to notify is a breach in its own right, quite separate from the event behind it, and a pattern of missed notifications is read as a serious governance failing. This guide sets out what you must report, how quickly, and — importantly — why the duty to notify is yours alone and cannot be handed to any system or third party.
Why notifications matter more than they seem
Notifications are how CQC keeps a live picture of what is happening across the services it regulates between assessments. They feed directly into its view of a provider, so they sit at the heart of the Well-led key question. A service that notifies promptly and completely, even about difficult events, demonstrates exactly the openness the regulator wants to see. A service that notifies late, incompletely, or not at all raises an immediate question: what else is not being surfaced? That is why the notification duty carries its own enforcement weight — the failure to be open is treated as a problem in itself, regardless of the outcome of the event.
What you must notify CQC about
The categories below are the notifiable events for adult social care providers. This is a guide, not the full legal text, so always check CQC's current guidance and the regulations for the precise definitions and any that are specific to your service:
- Death of a person using the service — including where the death may be connected to the care or treatment provided.
- Serious injury to a person using the service.
- Abuse or allegations of abuse concerning a person using the service — whether the alleged abuse occurred within the service or elsewhere.
- Applications and outcomes relating to deprivation of liberty — the results of applications to deprive a person of their liberty under the relevant legal framework.
- Events that stop or seriously interrupt the service — such as a fire, flood, loss of utilities, or an infectious-disease outbreak that affects the provider's ability to carry on safely.
- Police involvement in relation to a person using the service.
- Certain changes to the provider or service — for example changes to the registered manager or to the running of the organisation, which have their own notification requirements.
A useful rule of thumb: if a serious thing has happened to a person in your care, or something has happened that affects your ability to run the service safely, assume it is notifiable and check — rather than assuming it is not.
How quickly, and how
The general standard is that you notify CQC as soon as reasonably practicable after you become aware of the event, and some notifications are expected without delay. Notifications are made through CQC's own channels using its notification forms. The practical discipline that keeps a service safe here is to treat notification as an immediate action the moment a notifiable event is confirmed — not a task to be reconciled at the end of the week — and to keep your own record of what you notified, when, and how. That record is part of the evidence that you meet your obligations, and it is exactly what an assessor will want to see under Well-led.
One event, several duties
A single event can trigger obligations to more than one body, and meeting one does not discharge the others. A death may need to be reported to a coroner; a safeguarding concern to the local authority safeguarding team; a workplace injury to the Health and Safety Executive under RIDDOR; and, separately, to CQC. It is a common and serious mistake to assume that because an incident has been reported somewhere, the CQC notification is covered. It usually is not. Build your internal process around the assumption that a serious event may need several separate reports, and make sure the CQC notification is never the one that gets forgotten because everyone was busy dealing with the others.
The duty is yours — it cannot be delegated
This point matters enough to state plainly: submitting a statutory notification is the registered person's own legal responsibility, and it cannot be handed to a software product, a consultant, or any third party. No system notifies CQC on your behalf. What a good system genuinely can do is help you not miss the duty — by making it obvious when a notifiable event has occurred, prompting the right people, and holding the record that you notified. But the judgement that an event is notifiable, and the act of notifying, remain with you as the provider. Any tool that implies otherwise is misleading you about where the legal responsibility sits.
Build a process so nothing is missed
Missed notifications almost always happen not through bad faith but through a busy moment and an unclear process. The fix is to make the process explicit before you ever need it. Everyone should know what kinds of event are notifiable, who confirms that a notification is required, who submits it, and where the record is kept. Fold a notification check into your incident and safeguarding procedures, so that whenever a serious event is logged the question "does this need a CQC notification?" is asked automatically rather than left to memory. A service that has this process running quietly in the background is far less likely to find itself explaining a missed notification to an assessor.
A worked example
Consider a resident who has an unwitnessed fall overnight, is taken to hospital with a fractured hip, and sadly dies some days later. It is worth walking through because it shows how one event can ripple into several separate duties. The serious injury at the time of the fall is potentially notifiable to CQC. The death, when it comes, is separately notifiable — and if it may be connected to the person's care, that connection matters. The fall itself should be recorded and investigated as an incident, and depending on the circumstances may engage safeguarding and a referral to the local authority. If the death is unexpected it will involve the coroner. And if the duty of candour is triggered, the service must be open with the person's family, apologise, and record that it has done so.
No single report covers all of that. The coroner is not CQC; the local authority is not CQC; the duty of candour conversation is not a notification. A service without a clear process can easily deal with the immediate crisis — the ambulance, the family, the investigation — and let the CQC notification slip, then find weeks later that the omission is itself a breach. The lesson is to have a process that, the moment a serious event is logged, prompts the question of every separate duty it might trigger, so the notification is made alongside everything else rather than instead of it.
Never miss a notifiable event
Complys flags when an incident may be notifiable, prompts the right people, and keeps your record that you notified — so the duty is easy to meet. But the notification itself stays with you: Complys does not submit your statutory notifications to CQC on your behalf, and never claims to.
Sources
- CQC — Notifications
- Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009
- Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014
This guide is general information, not regulatory or legal advice. Always check CQC's own current notification guidance for the precise events and timescales that apply to your service.
Statutory notifications — FAQs
What are CQC statutory notifications?
They are events that registered providers are legally required to tell CQC about, set out in the 2009 registration regulations and the 2014 regulated activities regulations. They include deaths of people using the service, serious injuries, abuse or allegations of abuse, outcomes of applications to deprive a person of their liberty, certain police involvement, and events that stop or seriously interrupt the running of the service.
How quickly must I notify CQC?
As soon as reasonably practicable after you become aware of the event. Some notifications are expected without delay. The safest approach is to treat notification as an immediate task once a notifiable event is confirmed, rather than something to be caught up on later, and to keep a record of when and how you notified.
Does Complys or any software submit notifications for me?
No. Submitting a statutory notification is the provider's own legal responsibility and cannot be delegated to a software product or third party. Good systems can flag that a notifiable event has occurred and keep the record that you notified, but the duty — and the submission itself — remains yours as the registered person.
What happens if I fail to notify CQC?
Failing to submit a required notification is a breach of your registration conditions in its own right — separate from the underlying event. CQC can take enforcement action for a failure to notify, and a pattern of missed notifications is treated as a serious governance and Well-led concern because it suggests the provider is not being open.
Do I still notify CQC if I have reported to someone else?
Usually yes. Reporting a death to a coroner, a safeguarding concern to the local authority, or an incident to the HSE under RIDDOR does not remove your separate duty to notify CQC. Different bodies have different requirements, and meeting one does not discharge another. When in doubt, notify.
Who is responsible for making notifications?
The registered person — the provider and, for day-to-day matters, the registered manager. In practice a service needs a clear internal process so that when a notifiable event happens, everyone knows who confirms it, who submits the notification, and where the record is kept, so nothing falls through the gap during a busy or difficult moment.