Mandatory training for care workers in the UK, with sources

No single law lists the mandatory training for care workers in the UK. In England, the law names a handful of duties: health and safety training, fire safety training, trained first aiders, COSHH training where staff are exposed, and, since 1 July 2022, learning disability and autism training for each person working for the regulated activities of a provider registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC)¹²³⁴⁵⁶.

Skills for Care's guide, updated December 2025, adds the sector list: 11 topics, 8 for every worker and 3 that depend on the role⁷. CQC's Regulation 18 guidance leaves the rest to "other mandatory training, as defined by the provider for their role", which means your own policy⁸.

This page covers England. If your service is in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, those rules were not checked for this page.

Is there one official list of mandatory training for care workers?

No. Skills for Care splits the training into 2 kinds, and only the first comes from law. Statutory training is "usually required by law or where a statutory body has instructed an organisation to provide training based on specific legislation"⁷.

Mandatory training: This is compulsory training that is determined essential by an organisation or service commissioners for the safe and efficient delivery of services.

Skills for Care, Statutory and mandatory training guide for adult social care employers, December 2025⁷

CQC's Regulation 18 guidance draws the same line, separating "Statutory training" from "Other mandatory training, as defined by the provider for their role"⁸.

Skills for Care's December 2025 guide does not use "core" as a category. Part 1 is "Training required by all workers", with 3 topics that depend on the role, and Part 2 is "Additional training", set by the employer⁷. If your matrix has a "core" column, you decide what goes in it.

Which care worker training does the law itself require?

The law names 4 training duties outright: health and safety, fire safety, first aid and hazardous substances. HSE adds a list of law that may be relevant to moving and handling risks; learning disability and autism has its own section below. None of these provisions sets an annual cycle.

• Health and safety. Section 2(2)(c) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 makes "such information, instruction, training and supervision as is necessary" part of the employer's general duty¹. Regulation 13 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 adds when: on recruitment and on new or increased risks, "repeated periodically where appropriate", in working hours².
• Fire safety. Article 21 of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 requires "adequate safety training" on the same triggers, in England and Wales³.
• First aid. Regulation 3(2) of the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 requires enough "suitable persons", and a person is not suitable "unless he has undergone such training and has such qualifications as may be appropriate in the circumstances of that case"⁴.
• Hazardous substances. Regulation 12 of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 requires "suitable and sufficient information, instruction and training" where work is liable to expose an employee⁵.
• Moving and handling. HSE lists the Manual Handling Operations Regulations, PUWER and LOLER, among others, as law that "may be relevant for assessing moving and handling risks". The HSE pages read for this guide do not say that any of them requires training⁹.

Over all of it sits Regulation 18(2)(a) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014: your staff must "receive such appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform"¹⁰. Regulation 18 names no topic and no frequency. The only yearly fire item in the sources read is Skills for Care's practice fire drills, held "yearly as a minimum"⁷.

What does the Oliver McGowan requirement mean for your staff?

Each person working for your regulated activities needs training on learning disability and autism "which is appropriate to the person's role". That is section 20(5ZA) of the Health and Social Care Act 2008, inserted by section 181 of the Health and Care Act 2022 from 1 July 2022⁶.

Open Regulation 18 on legislation.gov.uk and that duty is not in its text¹⁰. Section 181(7) explains why: until new regulations come into force, the 2014 Regulations are read "as if regulation 18 of the 2014 regulations contained such requirements"⁶.

The Department of Health and Social Care's code of practice¹¹, final since 6 September 2025, defines 3 tiers of capability. The code sets a minimum curriculum for tiers 1 and 2, with tier 3 needing further training, and CQC must take it into account:

• Tier 1, for general awareness: elearning of at least 90 minutes, plus at least 1 hour of live, interactive training with a person with a learning disability and an autistic person. The hour can be online¹¹.
• Tier 2, for staff who provide care and support: the same elearning, plus at least 1 day of training delivered with people with a learning disability and autistic people, trainees and trainers both in person¹¹.

To check which other topics you can move online, see online or face to face care training in England.

The code expects a retake "at least every 3 years or more regularly if a member of staff requires it"¹¹. In a domiciliary care agency, "all staff who have contact with the public are likely to need tier 2 capabilities"; in a care home, a person employed to do laundry or maintain gardens "may only need tier 1 capabilities"¹¹.

Section 181 of the Health and Care Act 2022 names no product⁶. NHS England calls the Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training the "preferred and recommended training"¹². If you depart from the code, CQC expects good reasons and proof that you meet the requirement another way¹¹.

Your care coordinators who only speak to clients by phone are the open case. The domiciliary example says "contact with the public" without saying whether a call counts; the code's primary care example says staff who "speak with patients on the phone" are likely to need tier 2, and its 111 example says call handlers are likely to need "a minimum of tier 2", but neither is a domiciliary setting¹¹.

What is on the Skills for Care statutory and mandatory list?

Skills for Care's Part 1 lists 11 topics. 8 apply to every worker: health and safety awareness, fire safety, moving and handling objects, infection prevention and control, adult safeguarding, basic life support and first aid, child safeguarding, and learning disability and autism awareness⁷. 3 apply when the role includes the task: assisting and moving people, food hygiene and medication administration, each with the test "If yes, training is required"⁷.

Part 2, "Additional training", is set by you and by your commissioners' contracts. Its examples include dementia, end of life care, mental capacity, and GDPR and data protection⁷. If a bundle sold to you as "mandatory" includes those, Skills for Care files them under Part 2.

In the table, "not stated" means the source in that row gives no frequency.

Part 1 is guidance, not statute, though Skills for Care says it was "updated in-line with CQC's revised inspection framework"⁷. Neither Skills for Care nor CQC says, on the pages read for this guide, whether an inspector reads a missing Part 1 topic on your matrix as a Regulation 18 gap.

Do new care workers need the Care Certificate?

No law requires it. The 2025 Care Certificate FAQ calls the standards "a recommended tool to support minimum training, supervision and assessment that staff new to care ... should receive as part of induction"¹⁵. CQC's Regulation 18 guidance expects the induction: "Providers must ensure that they have an induction programme that prepares staff for their role"⁸.

Since March 2025 the Care Certificate has 16 standards¹⁴. Their 2025 titles are 1 Understand own role; 2 Your personal development; 3 Duty of care; 4 Equality, diversity, inclusion and human rights; 5 Work in a person-centred way; 6 Communication; 7 Privacy and dignity; 8 Fluids and nutrition; 9 Awareness of mental health and dementia; 10 Adult safeguarding; 11 Safeguarding children; 12 Basic life support; 13 Health and safety; 14 Handling information; 15 Infection prevention and control; 16 Awareness of learning disability and autism¹⁶. Standard 16 is new¹⁶.

The Care Certificate does not replace your statutory and mandatory training: employers "still need to deliver their 'statutory and mandatory' training"¹⁵. If you run domiciliary care, the FAQ adds a timing rule: providers "are expected to assess the competence of the new support worker before they start delivering care out of line of sight of a more experienced colleague"¹⁵.

Induction length "is determined by the employer"¹⁴. The Care Certificate pages read for this guide set no number of weeks, so your policy has to.

How often does mandatory training need refreshing?

Where Skills for Care states a frequency it is usually 3 years; where the law speaks, it says "repeated periodically where appropriate" and leaves the number to you⁷²³. 4 details change how you set your refresher dates.

• The qualification exemption. For health and safety, fire, moving and handling objects, infection prevention and adult safeguarding, a worker who completed a recognized adult social care qualification covering the topic does "not need to refresh for another three years from completion"⁷.
• The annual items. Basic life support "when identified or at least annually", fire drills "yearly as a minimum", and a review of training needs and competency for a medication worker with no training within a year⁷.
• Learning disability and autism. At least every 3 years, set by the Oliver McGowan code; Skills for Care refers you to it¹¹⁷.
• Part 2. "There are no refresher periods advised for additional training"⁷.

The phrase "Minimum refresher period is three years" reads 2 ways. It could mean at least every 3 years or no sooner than 3 years. Skills for Care uses it on 5 rows: health and safety, fire safety, moving and handling objects, infection prevention and control, and adult safeguarding.

The first reading fits the guide better. Other rows say "at least every three years". The guide's qualification clause points the same way: workers with a recognized adult social care qualification in the topic "do not need to refresh for another three years from completion", which only makes sense if a refresh falls due at 3 years.

Skills for Care's guide never defines the phrase, and the column is headed "Recommended refresher frequency considerations"⁷.

What do CQC inspectors look at?

CQC looks at training under the "Safe and effective staffing" quality statement, which expects that "Staff receive training appropriate and relevant to their role", with subtopics including "Learning, development and competency"¹⁷.

CQC's Regulation 18 guidance says what your evidence has to show: training needs assessed "at the start of employment and reviewed at appropriate intervals", supervision until staff are competent, and training "monitored and appropriate action taken quickly when training requirements are not being met"⁸. For learning disability and autism, providers "must be prepared to demonstrate to CQC how their chosen approach meets the code"¹¹.

CQC cannot prosecute a Regulation 18 breach, but it can take regulatory action, and it must refuse registration to a provider that cannot satisfy CQC on Regulation 18⁸. Regulation 12 requires staff to have "the qualifications, competence, skills and experience to do so safely", and CQC can prosecute a failure that results in avoidable harm or significant risk of harm, with no Warning Notice first¹³.

Neither CQC page asks for a "training matrix" by name or says how fast "quickly" has to be⁸¹⁷.

How to do it yourself

Build your training matrix in a spreadsheet: 1 row per person, 1 column per topic, a completion date and a due date in each cell. The free tools are the Skills for Care guide, the Care Certificate self-assessment tool and the Oliver McGowan code⁷¹⁴¹¹.

If you are a small provider, plan on 1 to 2 working days, then a short monthly check. These are working estimates, not CQC or Skills for Care figures.

1. List every role and what it touches: moving people, food, medicines, contact with the public. Those 4 answers decide 3 of the 11 Part 1 rows and the Oliver McGowan tier⁷¹¹.
2. Put the statutory rows on every role: health and safety and fire safety at recruitment, COSHH where staff are exposed, learning disability and autism by tier, and as many trained first aiders as is "adequate and appropriate in the circumstances", because regulation 3 of the First-Aid Regulations 1981 sets no fixed number²³⁵⁶⁴.
3. Add the Part 1 rows, then Part 2 for your service and your commissioners' contracts⁷.
4. Write the frequencies into your training policy. Copy the stated ones; where the law says "periodically where appropriate" or nothing, decide and write down why. Skills for Care wants requirements "accurately documented in relevant policies"⁷².
5. Plan the competency checks alongside the courses: observe medication administration and moving people, hold a fire drill at least yearly, and sign off each domiciliary starter before they work out of line of sight⁷¹⁵.
6. Book learning disability and autism training by tier. Tier 2 is 1 day in person, in 2 parts, each delivered by a facilitator and a trainer who has a learning disability or is autistic, so your rota has to release each worker for the full day on a date a session exists¹¹. The elearning alone meets neither tier¹¹.
7. Run the gap check on a fixed day and act on what it finds; CQC's Regulation 18 guidance asks for action "quickly"⁸.

The step 6 times come from the Oliver McGowan code¹¹; the rest are working estimates for a small provider.

The 4 mistakes that cost the most

1. A policy that never defines "other mandatory training". CQC leaves that layer "as defined by the provider for their role"; if your policy leaves it undefined, you have nothing to measure your staff against⁸.
2. Courses with no competency check. Skills for Care gives employers the responsibility to "check and evidence that workers are competent", and the NICE guidance it cites says staff should administer medicines only when they "have been assessed as competent by the employer"⁷.
3. Counting the elearning as the whole Oliver McGowan requirement. Both tiers add live training, 1 hour or 1 day¹¹.
4. Treating guidance as law. Skills for Care's 3 years is guidance, and Part 2 has no advised refresher at all⁷. If your policy says "annual" for safeguarding, that is your rule to keep; no regulation read for this guide set it.

Questions people also ask

Is Oliver McGowan training a legal requirement? Learning disability and autism training appropriate to each person's role is a legal requirement for providers registered with CQC, from 1 July 2022 under section 181 of the Health and Care Act 2022⁶. The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training is NHS England's recommended way to meet it¹².

Does CQC require annual mandatory training? None of the 3 CQC pages read for this guide sets an annual cycle for any topic; Skills for Care advises basic life support at least annually and fire drills yearly⁸¹³¹⁷⁷.

How many first aiders do you need? The First-Aid Regulations 1981 require a number that is "adequate and appropriate in the circumstances", and Skills for Care says it is "the employer's responsibility to determine how many people need training and to what level"⁴⁷.