Introduction
Our existing CQC registration checklist covers the full preparation journey phase by phase. This article narrows in specifically on the question people ask before they've even started that checklist: what actually needs to exist before I can realistically apply?
The honest answer is that CQC registration requirements fall into three groups — people, documents, and governance decisions — and getting each one genuinely ready (not just started) before you apply is what separates a smooth application from a stalled one. See CQC's own registration guidance for the definitive requirements; this article explains how they fit together in practice.
Who needs to register
Anyone carrying out a CQC-regulated activity — personal care, TDDI (Treatment of Disease, Disorder or Injury), and a number of other specified activities — needs to be registered before they start operating, not after. The regulated activity itself is the first thing to confirm, since it determines which requirements actually apply to you; a domiciliary personal-care provider and a TDDI provider face meaningfully different requirements from this point on.
Getting this confirmation wrong at the outset — applying under the wrong regulated activity, or missing that your service actually spans two — tends to surface only once the application is well underway, which is precisely the kind of costly late discovery worth ruling out before any other preparation begins.
The people you need in place: Nominated Individual and Registered Manager
Where the provider is an organisation, a Nominated Individual must be identified — the person formally responsible for supervising how the regulated activity is managed. A Registered Manager must also be in place, with day-to-day responsibility for the service and its compliance.
Both roles need to be filled by real, named people before you apply, not identified as "to be recruited." CQC assesses the suitability of both individuals as part of registration, including a Fit Person Interview for the Registered Manager — see our guide on what to expect from that interview for the specifics.
The documents you need before you start
A Statement of Purpose — a formal document setting out what your service does, who it's for, and how it's run — is a core registration requirement; see CQC's guidance on the Statement of Purpose for what it needs to cover. Alongside it, you'll need evidence for both the Nominated Individual and Registered Manager (references, qualifications, DBS checks in progress or completed), and a realistic business plan demonstrating financial viability.
Of these, references and DBS checks are worth flagging specifically as the items most likely to depend on someone else's timeline rather than your own — former employers who respond slowly, DBS processing times that fluctuate. Starting these the moment your Registered Manager and Nominated Individual are confirmed, well before the rest of the application is drafted, is consistently the single most effective way to avoid an otherwise avoidable wait later.
Governance and policy readiness
Your core policies — safeguarding, medication management, infection control, recruitment, complaints, health and safety, governance, data protection, equality and human rights — need to genuinely reflect how your specific service will run, not read as a generic template. See what's actually required vs optional for the full breakdown.
Governance readiness is about more than the policies themselves — it's about being able to describe, credibly, how you'll actually know your service is running the way those policies describe once you're operating. This is a genuinely different, harder question than "do the policies exist," and it's exactly the kind of question the Fit Person Interview is designed to test.