CQC REGISTRATION SPECIALISTS
CQC Registration Consultancy in England
We build your entire regulated care business and submit your complete CQC application in 16 weeks, while you keep working.
Company, compliance documentation, branding, systems, and your CQC application, built properly by a dedicated team of 13 and submitted to the current Single Assessment Framework. You stay employed throughout.
Last reviewed: 03 June 2026
CQC and Ofsted specialists · England-wide · Built to the Single Assessment Framework
MORE THAN REGISTRATION
We don’t just register you. We build the whole business.
CQC registration is the milestone. A working, compliant business is the point. Most consultancies prepare an application and leave you to figure out the rest, the company, the policies, the website, the accountant, the systems. We build all of it.
By the time your application is submitted, you don’t just have a pending registration. You have a complete, properly structured care business, ready to operate the moment you are approved, and a plan for how to run it and win your first contracts.
Your limited company, formed and structured for CQC
Every policy and procedure, written and tailored to your service
Professional branding and a compliant website
A healthcare-experienced accountant, briefed and aligned
Staff and operational systems, set up and ready
Your complete CQC application, prepared and submitted
A detailed operations guide for running the business day to day
A contract sourcing blueprint for winning your first care contracts
One team of 13. One coordinated build. A real business, not just a registration.
What CQC registration actually is
The Care Quality Commission regulates health and adult social care in England. If your business provides a regulated activity, you must register with the CQC before you start operating. This is not optional and it is not a formality.
Providing a regulated activity without registration is a criminal offence under section 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008. There is no grace period and no informal route. Operating first and registering later can lead to prosecution and a fine, and it can sink your application before it starts.
Registration is governed by two pieces of law: the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Together they define which activities are regulated, what standards you must meet, and who is accountable for meeting them.
For most people starting a care business, the question is not whether CQC registration is rigorous. It is. The question is whether you have the time, the documentation, and the regulatory knowledge to get it right the first time, while you are still working. That is what we handle.
Who needs to register with the CQC
CQC registration is triggered by the activity you provide, not your job title or the name of your service. There are 14 regulated activities defined in law. If your business carries out one or more of them, you almost certainly need to register.
The regulated activities most relevant to new care businesses are:
- Personal care (the most common trigger for domiciliary care and supported living)
- Accommodation for people who require nursing or personal care (care homes)
- Treatment of disease, disorder or injury
- Accommodation for people who require treatment for substance misuse
- Diagnostic and screening procedures
- Transport services, triage and medical advice provided remotely
The full list of 14 covers a wider range of clinical and specialist services. The practical point for most founders is simple: if you deliver hands-on personal care, or you accommodate people who need nursing or personal care, you are in scope and you must register.
There is a common trap here. Some support services do not require registration on their own, things like general housework, shopping, or companionship. But the moment you add personal care to the mix, you cross into regulated territory. Getting this boundary wrong, in either direction, costs time and money. Registering for activities you do not deliver wastes fees. Delivering activities you have not registered for is a criminal breach.
Part of what we do at the very start is map your exact service against the 14 regulated activities and confirm the right registration category before anything else happens.
Not sure which regulated activities apply to you? That is the first thing we resolve on your free consultation. Getting it right at the start prevents the most common cause of delays and rejections.
How CQC registration actually works in 2026
The CQC registration process has changed significantly in the last two years, and a lot of the advice still circulating online is out of date. Here is the current reality.
The current ‘We statements’ the CQC assesses against.
Safe, effective, caring, responsive, well-led.
How the CQC gathers proof for each statement.
The application no longer always goes through the online portal
Throughout 2024 and 2025, the CQC’s digital provider portal was repeatedly paused and redirected for new provider applications. The current position is that many new registrations are submitted using specific Word document templates, completed and emailed to a dedicated CQC inbox, rather than entered through the online system.
This matters more than it sounds. The submission format, the exact templates, and the sequencing all affect whether your application is accepted or returned. Consultancies working from pre-2024 guidance are preparing applications for a system that is not reliably operating. We prepare and submit using the route CQC is actually accepting now.
Assessment is built on the Single Assessment Framework
In late 2023 the CQC replaced its old Key Lines of Enquiry (KLOEs) with the Single Assessment Framework. If a consultancy is still talking about KLOEs, they are describing a system that no longer exists.
Under the current framework, your service is assessed against 34 Quality Statements. These are written as “We statements”, short descriptions of what good care looks like, and they sit underneath the five key questions the CQC has always asked: is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led?
Evidence is gathered across six categories
For each Quality Statement, the CQC looks at evidence grouped into six categories, including people’s experience of care, feedback from staff, observations, and the processes and outcomes you can demonstrate. Your policies, procedures, and the systems behind them are the foundation of this evidence.
The headline point is this: a CQC application in 2026 is not a form-filling exercise. It is a structured demonstration that your business is built to the current framework, submitted through the route the regulator is currently accepting, with documentation that holds together under scrutiny. That is precisely what we build.
What the CQC is looking for
Every CQC assessment comes back to five questions. Understanding them tells you what your entire application needs to evidence.
Safe
Are people protected from abuse and avoidable harm? Your safeguarding, risk management, and safer recruitment evidence this.
Effective
Does the care achieve good outcomes? Your care planning, training, and quality monitoring evidence this.
Caring
Are people treated with compassion, dignity, and respect? Your culture, your staff conduct, and people’s own feedback evidence this.
Responsive
Are services organised around people’s needs? Your care planning, complaints handling, and flexibility evidence this.
Well-led
Is the business governed properly? Your governance structure, leadership accountability, and quality assurance evidence this. For new providers, Safe and Well-led usually draw the most scrutiny.
Each of these questions maps to specific Quality Statements, and each Quality Statement needs evidence. When we build your documentation, every policy and procedure is mapped against these five questions so there are no gaps when the CQC assesses you.
DONE FOR YOU
How we build and submit your CQC registration
We do not hand you templates and wish you luck. A dedicated team of 13 builds your entire registration, five regulation professionals, four administration officers, and three technical specialists, coordinated end to end. Here is how the work runs across seven stages.
Compliance & Regulatory Pathway Assessment
We map your service against the 14 regulated activities, confirm the correct registration category, and assess every director and proposed registered manager against CQC’s fit and proper person criteria. Any barrier, qualifications, DBS, visa status, gets flagged upfront with a resolution plan.
Legal & Business Structure Setup
We handle company formation at Companies House with the right SIC codes, draft CQC-aligned articles of association and a governance structure, and prepare the legal and HR document foundation your service needs.
Complete Compliance Documentation
We write every policy and procedure the CQC expects, safeguarding, medication, safer recruitment, risk assessment, and the rest, tailored to your service and mapped against the five key questions so there are no gaps.
Professional Branding & Web Presence
We check your trading name against CQC’s appropriateness guidelines, then build your branding and a professional website, so your business looks credible from day one.
Accountancy & Financial Structure
We brief and align a healthcare-experienced accountant from our network, make sure your financial structure matches your CQC documentation, and keep the two consistent right up to submission.
Regulatory Registration & Interview Support
We complete your full application, write your responses to the five key questions in the CQC’s expected format, submit through the route CQC is currently accepting, and prepare you thoroughly for the registered manager interview with structured mock sessions. Already applied and preparing for your interview? See our CQC interview preparation.
Post-Registration Launch Support
Once you are registered, we help you move from approval to actually delivering care, operations, staff onboarding, finding your first contracts, and ongoing compliance, with weekly support through your first weeks of operation.
How long CQC registration takes
We build and submit your complete application in 16 weeks. That is the part within our control, the assessment, the documentation, the company setup, the application itself.
After submission, the timeline belongs to the CQC. Assessment periods vary, and the regulator’s own processing times have been affected by the digital system disruption and a backlog of assessments. We manage this period for you: we monitor for queries, respond to the CQC on your behalf, prepare you for your interview, and keep you updated every week until a decision is made.
So the honest answer is two parts. Sixteen weeks to a complete, submitted application. Then a regulator-dependent assessment period that we manage from start to finish. We will not promise you a registration date that depends on the CQC, because no honest consultancy can. What we promise is that your application is submitted correctly, quickly, and completely, and that we stay with you until you are approved and operating.
What CQC registration costs
No upfront fee; the CQC charges an annual provider fee by size.
We complete and submit your full application within 16 weeks.
Defined in law; we map your service to the right ones.
There is no upfront application fee to register with the CQC. Once your registration takes effect, the CQC charges an annual provider fee, set by the size of your service rather than a flat figure. This is the regulator’s fee, separate from any service fee.
Our service builds the entire business around it, the company, the documentation, the branding and website, the accountancy coordination, the application and interview preparation, the operations guide, the contract sourcing blueprint, and your post-registration launch support, delivered by a team of 13.
Beyond the CQC’s fee, a new care business has other real costs to budget for: insurance, DBS checks, training, and software among them. On your free consultation we will give you a clear picture of the full cost of getting started, with no vague estimates.
CQC fee correct as of 03 June 2026. Always confirm the current fee on the CQC website before budgeting.
CQC registration questions, answered
Related guides
Want more detail before you book? These guides go deeper.
How much does CQC registration cost?
The honest cost of registering a care business, beyond the regulator’s fee.
Read the guide →How long does CQC registration take?
The honest timeline, and what decides how fast you’re registered.
Read the guide →The 34 CQC Quality Statements explained
The current framework and the five key questions.
Read the guide →How to become a registered manager
The Level 5 Diploma, the fitness test, and the interview.
Read the guide →CQC vs Ofsted: which regulator do you need?
Which regulator your business needs, and the edge cases.
Read the guide →Do you need CQC registration?
Whether you need to register comes down to one thing: the personal care boundary.
Read the guide →The CQC registered manager interview: what to expect
A 30 to 60 minute fitness assessment, not a formality. What it covers and how to prepare.
Read the guide →Ready to start your CQC registration?
Book a free 30-minute consultation. We will map your regulated activities, answer your questions, and show you exactly how we would build and submit your CQC application in 16 weeks.
No obligation. 100% confidential.