What Is a CQC Nominated Individual and Do You Need One?

A CQC nominated individual is the person an organisation identifies to supervise the management of the regulated activities it provides. The role sits between the provider organisation's leadership and the people managing day-to-day care. It is not simply a contact name to add to a registration form.

If you are registering a limited company, charity or another organisation with the Care Quality Commission (CQC), you will normally need to identify a nominated individual. An individual provider or a partnership of individuals is treated differently.

This guide explains who needs one, who can take the role and how it differs from a registered manager. It focuses on the nominated-individual decision rather than repeating our wider registered manager requirements guide. Which activities the organisation is applying for is covered in what a CQC regulated activity is.

What does a nominated individual actually do?

Under Regulation 6 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, an organisational provider must identify someone responsible for supervising the management of its regulated activity.

In practice, that person needs to understand how the service is run and have enough authority to challenge and improve it. They should be able to explain the management structure, the main risks in the service and the evidence used to check whether care is safe and compliant.

The nominated individual is often a senior director or manager. They may oversee several homes, branches or service lines through registered managers and other leaders. The job is not necessarily to run every shift or complete every care audit personally; it is to make sure effective oversight exists and problems are acted on.

That means the role should be connected to real reporting arrangements. For example, if staff vacancies or quality concerns are repeatedly escalated by a registered manager, who reviews the information, authorises necessary resources and checks that action has been taken? A nominated individual should be able to demonstrate how those responsibilities work within the organisation.

Which providers need a nominated individual?

The starting point is the legal form of the registered provider, not whether the business calls itself an agency, care home or clinic.

A limited company with only one director is still an organisational provider. A director who works in the service may be a suitable nominated individual, but their job title alone does not demonstrate suitability.

An LLP should not be confused with a traditional partnership of individuals. CQC treats it as an organisation for registration purposes. Similarly, calling a company a "partnership" in marketing material does not change its legal identity.

For the legal distinctions, see CQC's guidance on who has to register and types of service provider.

Who can be the nominated individual?

CQC's Regulation 6 requires the person to be employed as a director, manager or secretary of the organisation and to be responsible for supervising management of the regulated activity. This is a substantive internal role, not an arrangement in which an unrelated adviser is named without authority.

The provider must take reasonable steps to establish that the proposed person is of good character, has the skills, knowledge, qualifications and experience needed for the activities they will oversee, and is able to fulfil the role, taking account of reasonable adjustments. CQC's guidance also refers to relevant suitability information and appropriate checks.

There is no universal rule that every nominated individual must hold a particular care-management diploma. The decisive requirement is credible competence to supervise the management of that service. The experience needed to oversee several nursing homes may be very different from that required for a specialist diagnostic clinic.

For a new company, it is sensible to record how the individual was assessed. That could include their relevant work history, understanding of CQC duties, leadership experience, references or other suitability checks, and the authority they will exercise over managers and operational decisions.

An impressive CV is useful, but CQC will also be interested in whether the planned management arrangements make sense.

Nominated individual versus registered manager

These two roles are regularly confused, especially in smaller providers.

The legal position is not that the nominated individual replaces the registered manager. CQC's registered-manager requirements must be considered separately, and a provider that needs a registered manager cannot dispense with that role just because a director is actively involved.

The provider remains responsible for its regulatory obligations. The nominated individual does not acquire the same individual registration status as a registered manager merely by being named on the provider application. GOV.UK's adult social care role guidance makes this distinction while recognising the nominated individual's significant leadership responsibility.

Can one person be both nominated individual and registered manager?

Sometimes, yes. CQC's new-provider application guidance says that a registered manager may also act as nominated individual in certain circumstances, normally in a small organisation.

That is not blanket permission to combine the roles regardless of scale, workload or management arrangements. The person still needs to meet the requirements of both roles, including any separate manager registration, and must have enough time and authority to discharge them properly.

For a single-site business whose director is also the competent day-to-day manager, the combination may be workable. In a growing multi-location group, meaningful supervision of managers is harder to demonstrate if the same individual is also personally responsible for running every service.

A useful test is to ask who scrutinises performance and intervenes when the registered manager is struggling. If the answer is effectively "the manager checks their own work", the governance structure needs careful thought.

Do you need one nominated individual for every location?

Not automatically. The application is organised around regulated activities, not a blanket one-person-per-premises rule.

CQC says one person can be the nominated individual for more than one regulated activity. Different activities may also have different nominated individuals, but the provider must identify the correct individual for each activity. For an existing registration change, CQC states that a regulated activity can have only one nominated individual.

For example, an organisation operating multiple care homes might use an appropriate senior leader to oversee the relevant activity across those services. It could have a different competent senior person for a materially different clinical activity if that better reflects its management structure.

The arrangement still has to be credible. One nominated individual covering many services needs suitable information, competent local management and enough oversight capacity. This is a management question, not merely a form-counting exercise.

See CQC's new-provider application forms for how additional nominated individuals are recorded.

What should the nominated individual be ready to explain?

The relevant questions depend on the service, but CQC expects the organisation to be able to demonstrate effective management supervision rather than a nominal appointment.

A proposed nominated individual should understand the regulated activities being applied for, the people who will manage them, how performance and safety are monitored, and how concerns are escalated. They should also be able to explain how the provider ensures managers have sufficient staffing, resources, training and support.

Imagine a care service receives repeated concerns about missed visits. The registered manager may be responsible for investigating individual incidents and adjusting operations. The nominated individual should be able to explain how senior management sees patterns, tests the corrective action and makes decisions about capacity or staffing where needed.

In a clinic, the same principle might involve how diagnostic incidents, consultant governance or prescribing concerns reach senior leadership. The exact detail differs, but the expectation of meaningful oversight remains.

What if your nominated individual leaves or changes role?

The provider should arrange a suitable replacement and notify CQC when the nominated individual changes. There is a specific CQC notification process for nominated individuals, officers and directors; it is not the same as a registered-manager application.

Use the current CQC notification guidance and form. Review whether the change also affects the organisation's statement of purpose, management arrangements or other registered details.

Avoid leaving the role assigned to somebody who no longer has the authority or employment relationship required by Regulation 6. The organisation should maintain an accountable senior person who can supervise management in practice.

Choosing the right person before you apply

Before naming the nominated individual, confirm the legal structure of the provider, list the regulated activities, and establish who will supervise the management of each one. Then test the proposed person's suitability against CQC's requirements and the real responsibilities of the post.

If you are selecting a director simply because they founded the company, ask whether they can demonstrate the necessary regulatory understanding, competence and authority. If you are recruiting somebody from outside, ensure the proposed employment and leadership arrangement genuinely satisfies the regulation.

The strongest application presents a coherent structure: the provider organisation, its nominated individual and its registered manager each have an intelligible role in delivering and overseeing safe care.

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This guide concerns providers registered with CQC in England. The precise arrangements depend on the legal provider, regulated activities and current CQC requirements.