The CQC fundamental standards are Regulations 8 to 20A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. They are the standards below which care must never fall. Every registered provider in England must meet them, whatever the setting.
They are not the same thing as the quality statements. The standards are law and change rarely. The quality statements — and whatever replaces them under the 2026 reform — are CQC's assessment framework, and change often. Breaching a fundamental standard can be a criminal offence; falling short against an assessment framework results in a rating.
Most summaries of the fundamental standards list thirteen of them, describe each in a sentence, and stop. That leaves out the three things a registered manager actually needs: which regulation number each standard is, which ones CQC can prosecute you for without proving harm, and the fact that the numbering collides with a completely different set of regulations.
First: there are two sets of CQC regulations, and the numbers clash
This causes more confusion than anything else in CQC compliance, and it is entirely avoidable once you have seen it laid out.
| Number | Registration Regs 2009 (registration and notifications) | Regulated Activities Regs 2014 (the fundamental standards) |
|---|---|---|
| Reg 12 | Statement of purpose | Safe care and treatment |
| Reg 13 | Financial position | Safeguarding from abuse and improper treatment |
| Reg 14 | Notice of absence | Meeting nutritional and hydration needs |
| Reg 15 | Notice of changes | Premises and equipment |
| Reg 16 | Notification of death of a service user | Receiving and acting on complaints |
| Reg 17 | Notification of death or unauthorised absence of a detained patient | Good governance |
| Reg 18 | Notification of other incidents | Staffing |
So “Regulation 18” means staffing or notification of other incidents depending entirely on which instrument someone has in mind. “Regulation 15” means premises and equipment or notice of changes. When a policy, an action plan or a consultant refers to a regulation number without naming the instrument, it is genuinely ambiguous.
The rule of thumb: fundamental standards are the 2014 regulations. Notifications and registration are the 2009 regulations. If you need the notification side, we have written that up separately in CQC notifications: what you must report and when.
The fundamental standards in full
Part 3, Section 2 of the 2014 regulations is headed “Fundamental Standards” and runs from Regulation 8 to Regulation 20A.
| Reg | Standard | What it requires, in short |
|---|---|---|
| 8 | General | The interpretation provision — the standards below are read subject to it, so it appears in every prosecution reference as "as read with regulation 8". |
| 9 | Person-centred care | Care must be appropriate, meet needs, and reflect preferences. The one most often cited in reports. |
| 9A | Visiting and accompanying in care homes, hospitals and hospices | The newest standard, and the one most lists still omit. Rights to visit and to be accompanied. |
| 10 | Dignity and respect | Privacy, autonomy, equality. |
| 11 | Need for consent | Consent must be obtained, with lawful authority where the person lacks capacity. |
| 12 | Safe care and treatment | Risk assessment, safe premises and equipment, medicines, infection control. |
| 13 | Safeguarding from abuse and improper treatment | Includes unlawful restraint and deprivation of liberty. |
| 14 | Meeting nutritional and hydration needs | Adequate food and drink, and support to consume it. |
| 15 | Premises and equipment | Clean, secure, suitable, properly maintained. |
| 16 | Receiving and acting on complaints | An accessible system — and, under 16(3), giving CQC a summary on request. |
| 17 | Good governance | Systems to assess and improve quality, manage risk, and maintain records. The one that catches well-run services with poor paperwork. |
| 18 | Staffing | Sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff, properly supported. |
| 19 | Fit and proper persons employed | Recruitment, DBS, and the evidence in Schedule 3. |
| 20 | Duty of candour | Be open and transparent; notify and apologise when a notifiable safety incident occurs. |
| 20A | Display of performance assessments | Display your rating — at each location and on your website. |
Separately, Regulations 4 to 7 sit under “requirements relating to persons carrying on or managing a regulated activity” — including Regulation 5, fit and proper persons: directors, and Regulation 7, requirements relating to registered managers. These are not fundamental standards, but they are enforceable requirements and they are frequently confused with them.
Regulation 9A is new, and most lists are out of date
If you are working from a summary that lists thirteen fundamental standards, it predates Regulation 9A — visiting and accompanying in care homes, hospitals and hospices. It sits between person-centred care and dignity and respect, and it is a fundamental standard like any other.
Check the date on any list you are relying on. Ours is built from the current consolidated text on legislation.gov.uk, which as at this writing is stated to be up to date with all changes in force on or before 23 June 2026.
Which fundamental standards can CQC prosecute?
This is the part almost nobody sets out, and it matters — because the standards are not equally enforceable. Regulation 22 creates two distinct categories.
Prosecutable outright, with no need to show harm
Under Regulation 22(1), it is an offence simply to fail to comply with:
- Regulation 11 — need for consent
- Regulation 16(3) — giving CQC a summary of complaints on request
- Regulation 17(3) — giving CQC information on request under good governance
- Regulation 20(2)(a) and (3) — the duty of candour: notifying the person and following up in writing
- Regulation 20A — displaying your rating
Note what that list means in practice. Failing to display your rating is directly prosecutable. So is failing to tell someone when something went wrong. No harm needs to have followed.
Prosecutable only where harm results
Under Regulation 22(2), failure to comply with Regulation 12 (safe care and treatment), Regulation 13(1) to (4) (safeguarding) or Regulation 14 (nutrition and hydration) is an offence only where the failure results in:
- avoidable harm, physical or psychological, to a service user
- a service user being exposed to a significant risk of such harm, or
- in cases of theft, misuse or misappropriation, loss of the money or property concerned
The defence
Regulation 22(4) provides a defence: that the registered person “took all reasonable steps and exercised all due diligence to prevent the breach”.
That phrase should be familiar — it is the same standard the Employment Rights Act 2025 applies to harassment prevention from 30 October 2026. And it works the same way here: it is an evidential defence. “All reasonable steps” is not a state of mind, it is a folder. Dated risk assessments, training records, audits with findings tracked to closure, and a governance trail showing someone looked and acted.
A service with the same practice and no records has the same defence available and no way to run it.
Standards versus framework — why the distinction matters now
The 2026 reform changes CQC’s assessment framework. It does not change the fundamental standards.
Quality statements are being replaced by key lines of enquiry framed as structured questions, and scoring is being removed — all of which is about how CQC assesses and rates you. The Regulations 8 to 20A obligations underneath are unaffected.
This is worth being clear about internally, because the two get conflated in planning. Framework changes mean remapping your evidence. Regulation changes mean changing what you do. The 2026 reform is the first kind.
One consequence CQC’s own review flagged: under the Single Assessment Framework, around 10% of assessments produced a rating of “good with a breach” — a service rated good while in breach of the regulations. Under the previous methodology a service in breach of a fundamental standard could not be rated good. If you are reading a rating as a proxy for regulatory compliance, that is worth knowing.
Common questions
How many CQC fundamental standards are there? Fifteen provisions run from Regulation 8 to Regulation 20A, of which Regulation 8 is interpretive. Many summaries say thirteen because they predate Regulation 9A, on visiting and accompanying.
What is CQC Regulation 12? In the 2014 Regulated Activities Regulations, safe care and treatment. In the 2009 Registration Regulations, statement of purpose. The numbering collides across the two instruments.
What is CQC Regulation 17? Good governance, under the 2014 regulations — systems to assess and improve quality, manage risk and maintain records. Regulation 17 of the 2009 regulations is a notification duty about detained patients.
Which CQC regulations can lead to prosecution? Regulations 11, 16(3), 17(3), 20(2)(a) and (3), and 20A can be prosecuted for non-compliance alone. Regulations 12, 13(1)–(4) and 14 can be prosecuted where the failure results in avoidable harm, significant risk of harm, or loss through theft or misappropriation.
Is the duty of candour a fundamental standard? Yes — Regulation 20. Parts of it are directly prosecutable without any need to show harm followed.
Are the fundamental standards changing in 2026? No. The 2026 reform changes CQC’s assessment framework, not the regulations. See our guide to the new assessment frameworks.
What is the difference between fundamental standards and quality statements? The standards are law and rarely change. The quality statements are CQC’s assessment framework and are being replaced. Breaching a standard can be a criminal offence; falling short against the framework produces a rating.
Where CompliantCare fits
Regulation 17 — good governance — is where well-run services most often come unstuck. Not because the care is poor, but because the systems that would demonstrate it are spread across drives, inboxes and someone’s memory.
CompliantCare holds policies, audits, incidents, risks and training in one place, each dated, owned and traceable to the standard it evidences. When an inspector asks how you assure quality, the answer is a record rather than a description.
Which is also, precisely, what “all reasonable steps and all due diligence” looks like when you have to prove it.
Auditing against these? Our free care home audit tool maps all 34 quality statements to what to check and which regulation it relates to.
Related: what the CQC is and how it regulates · CQC notifications and the 2009 regulations · CQC KLOEs and the 2026 reform · all 34 quality statements and the crosswalk tool
Sources: The Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/2936) · Regulation 22 — Offences · The Care Quality Commission (Registration) Regulations 2009 (SI 2009/3112) · CQC — Review of the single assessment framework and its implementation
This page explains the regulations as published. It is not legal advice.
Last reviewed: 30 July 2026. We review our CQC pages monthly against CQC's published guidance.