CQC Statutory Notifications: The Complete List
Every event you must notify CQC about, grouped and explained. The full list of 21 notification types, what triggers each one, and how to keep proof that you sent it.
By HeroDocs Team
There are 21 CQC statutory notifications: events and changes a registered provider must tell CQC about. They fall into two groups, events and incidents, and changes to your registered details. Miss one and you are in breach of the regulations, whether or not anyone was harmed.
This is the full list, taken from CQC's own guidance.
The 21 CQC statutory notifications
Events and incidents
These are the ones that wake you up at night. Thirteen of them.
Death of a person using the service. Any death of someone receiving a regulated activity from you.
Death of a detained mental health patient. There is a separate form for this, so do not use the general death notification.
Serious injury to a person using the service.
Allegations of abuse (safeguarding). Regulation 18 requires notification of "any abuse or allegation of abuse in relation to a service user". The allegation is the trigger. You do not wait to find out whether it is substantiated.
Police involvement in an incident. If the police attend or are called about a person using your service.
Unauthorised absence. A person detained under the Mental Health Act who is absent without leave.
Children and young people in adult psychiatric units.
Outcome of an application to deprive a person of their liberty (DoLS). CQC's notification type is the outcome. Regulation 18 goes wider: it covers a request to a supervisory body "including the result of such a request", and any application to a court. Read both.
Events that stop a service running safely and properly. Fire, flood, loss of premises, a failure of your systems, anything that means you cannot deliver care as registered.
Absence of a registered individual for 28 days or more. Usually your registered manager.
Return of a registered individual after an absence of 28 days or more.
Death of a registered provider, together with the plans for the service.
Liquidator or trustee's plans for a service.
Changes to your registered details
Eight more. These are the quiet ones, with no incident to force your hand.
Provider's name and address.
Change of an individual's name.
Change of contact details.
Changes to your statement of purpose.
Nominated individuals, officers and directors.
Registered manager for an activity.
Provider stopping regulated activities.
Insolvency.
Five that get missed
Allegations of abuse. Regulation 18 names "any abuse or allegation of abuse", so the allegation is the trigger and the finding is not. Waiting for the safeguarding meeting means notifying late.
Changes to your statement of purpose. If you change what you do, who you do it for, or where you do it, that is a notifiable change. Services update a statement of purpose to reflect a new service line and never tell CQC.
Events that stop a service running. This is broader than a fire. A week without a working medication system, or a digital records outage that stops staff accessing care plans, can qualify.
Absence of a registered manager. Twenty-eight days goes quickly when someone is on long-term sick. The clock does not wait for you to decide whether they are coming back.
DoLS outcomes. CQC's notification is named for the outcome, so services assume the application itself is not reportable. Regulation 18 covers the request and its result, and separately any application made to a court.
How to submit them
Each notification type has its own form, on its own CQC page. Go to the page for the event you are reporting rather than working from any summary, including this one.
On timing. For the incident notifications, the regulation is blunt. Regulation 18 of the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 says the registered person "must notify the Commission without delay" of the incidents it specifies. Not within a working day, not when the investigation concludes. Without delay.
CQC's own page for the death of a person using the service puts it as "You must notify us as soon as possible".
Changes to your registered details run on a different clock. A revision to your statement of purpose, for example, must be reported in writing within 28 days of the change under Regulation 12. Check the page for the specific type you are sending.
On proof. When you submit, CQC gives you a reference: an ENQ reference number, a notification ID, or a case ID. Any of those identifies your notification. Record it. That number is your evidence that you notified, and the date you did it.
Two practical points that matter more than they should:
Whatever the route, it can fail on the day you need it. If you cannot submit, record the attempt with a timestamp and a screenshot, then submit as soon as you can.
Keep your own log. Do not rely on searching CQC's system under pressure. Record what happened, which form you used, when you sent it, and the reference you got back.
What inspectors check for
Assume the check is not "did you notify". Assume it is a read across your incident records, your safeguarding log and your accident book, looking for events with no matching notification.
A gap between the two is a serious finding. It suggests either that you did not know the rules, or that you chose not to report. Neither reads well under well-led.
So build your notification log from the same records as your incidents. Do not keep it separately, in the head of one person who might be on leave.
One owner, one deputy, one monthly check
Three things make this reliable in a real service:
One named owner, one named deputy. Notifications should never depend on a single person being at work.
A trigger list on the wall. Not the full regulation, just the 21 headings above, where your senior team can see them. The same logic applies to your documents: our guide to what CQC expects at registration covers keeping the paperwork side reliable.
A monthly reconciliation. Once a month, compare your incident and safeguarding records against your notification log. Anything in one and not the other is either a notification you owe or a note explaining why it was not notifiable.
If you already track regulator changes in one place, this is the same habit applied to your own events. HeroDocs does the watching half: regulatory alerts arrive matched to the policies they affect, so a change in guidance and the document it hits land together.
That habit turns a scramble into a system. It is also the kind of evidence an inspector looks for under governance.
Where to check the detail
Each notification type has its own CQC page setting out exactly what to report and the form to use. Always work from those pages rather than a summary, including this one, because the forms and the detail change.
Sources
CQC, notifications, page last updated 25 March 2026, where all 21 notification types are listed.
Regulation 18 of the Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009: the registered person "must notify the Commission without delay" of the specified incidents.
Regulation 12: written details of any revision to the statement of purpose within 28 days.
CQC, death of a person using the service notification form, which states "You must notify us as soon as possible".
Regulation 18(2), which lists the notifiable incidents, including at (e) "any abuse or allegation of abuse in relation to a service user" and at (c) a request for a standard authorisation "including the result of such a request".
Last checked: 21 September 2026.