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On 2 October 2026, Skills for Care launched a new statutory and mandatory training bundle through its Training Hub and if you are a care provider in England, this is something you need to understand properly, not just note and move on from.
Skills for Care is the organisation that wrote the statutory and mandatory training guidance that the entire adult social care sector in England operates from, so don’t think of this as another generic training product.
They developed the Care Certificate. They shaped the Care Workforce Pathway. They work directly with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the Department of Health to define what GOOD and OUTSTANDING care looks like.
When they launch a training product, it carries a different kind of authority than anything else in the market and this one lands at a moment when CQC is inspecting at a faster rate than at any point in recent years.
The new training bundle is aligned with Part 1 of Skills for Care’s statutory and mandatory training guidance, updated December 2025, which itself was produced in partnership with social care employers, learning providers, and CQC, and specifically updated to align with CQC’s revised inspection framework.
What the above statement means is that this training directly reflects what inspectors are now assessing your workforce against.
Here is what care providers in the UK actually need to know.
What the New Mandatory Training for Care Workers Cover
The bundle brings together 8 training topics under one roof. 6 are core modules for all adult social care workers:
- Health and safety awareness
- Fire safety awareness
- Moving and handling objects
- Introduction to infection prevention and control
- Adult safeguarding awareness
- Child safeguarding awareness
Two additional modules are available for workers whose role requires them:
- Principles of medication administration
- Food hygiene awareness — available later in 2026
Each module is interactive, uses practical examples from everyday care settings, and can be completed at the learner’s own pace and in any order. The full bundle provides approximately 5 hours of eLearning.
Now here is what most providers read past, and should not.
Skills for Care’s statutory and mandatory training guide is explicit that there is no universal CQC mandatory training list. CQC does not publish one. What CQC does publish is Regulation 18 on staffing, which requires providers to ensure workers receive appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision, and appraisal to enable them to carry out their role.
In simple terms, the above means in your specific service depends on the people you support, the regulated activities you carry out, and the individual responsibilities of each staff member’s role.
The 8 modules in this bundle cover what Skills for Care identifies as the topics relevant across Part 1 of the guidance, which is the core baseline applicable to most adult social care workers. They are not the totality of your training obligations. For example, a care worker administering medication to a resident with Parkinson’s disease needs more than the principles of medication administration module. The bundle is the floor, not the ceiling.
What it gives providers for the first time is a benchmark they can rely on, created by the people who wrote the guidance, aligned to the inspection framework inspectors are actively using, and specific to adult social care rather than adapted from a generic health and safety template.
Who Needs the New Mandatory Training?
The short answer is: every adult social care worker in England needs training that covers these areas. The more precise answer is that the appropriate level and depth of that training depends on the person’s role and the people they are supporting.
For new starters joining your service, this bundle covers most of the induction training requirements alongside the Care Certificate. The Care Certificate remains the expected induction framework for new care workers in CQC-registered services. The Skills for Care mandatory training bundle supports and complements that framework, it does not replace it.
For existing staff, the bundle is relevant wherever training in these core areas is due for refresher or has gaps in the evidence. And that gap question matters more right now than it has for some time.
Skills for Care’s December 2025 statutory and mandatory training guidance does not prescribe a universal annual refresher requirement for every topic (a point many providers miss because they have been told “annual mandatory training” is the rule). The guidance instead sets out recommended refresher considerations by subject area.
- Fire safety, for example, should be refreshed annually.
- Safeguarding training refresher frequency depends on the level of the worker’s role and responsibility.
- Moving and handling requires both theory and observed practical assessment. A completed eLearning module alone does not satisfy the full requirement for staff physically using equipment with residents.
For the 2 additional modules, the medication administration module is specifically for workers whose role includes administering or supporting medication. Not every care worker in every service will need this, but for those who do, it is now a clearly defined, Skills for Care-authored module aligned directly to the guidance CQC uses to assess your practices.
For services still running paper-based medication records and relying on brief in-house medication training, this is a meaningful upgrade in both the quality of training and the evidence it produces.
One group that most care providers consistently overlook when reviewing mandatory training compliance is the agency and bank staff. Under the right-to-work rule changes that came into force on 1 October 2026, the compliance lens on temporary workers has sharpened significantly. But training compliance for agency staff has always been a provider responsibility and inspectors will ask about it.
If an agency worker is administering medication in your service, you need evidence of their competency, not an assumption that the agency has covered it.
Where to Get Your Team Trained Today
The Skills for Care bundle is available through their Training Hub. But before directing your entire team there, it is worth understanding what you may already have in place and where Access Skills can cover the same ground with courses that are CPD-accredited, CQC-aligned, and available at significantly lower cost.
At Access Skills, the Medication Management course covers safe medication administration, storage, and record-keeping in both domiciliary and residential settings, the same practical ground as the Skills for Care medication module, at £10 per learner and completable online in a day. For a team of ten, that is £100 to close one of the most significant training gaps CQC finds during inspection.
Alongside medication management, the Access Skills care refresher training courses cover a range of statutory and mandatory areas aligned to CQC requirements including;
- Safeguarding adults and children
- Infection prevention and control
- Health and safety
- Assisting and moving
- Fire safety.
All are available online, all are CPD-accredited, and all are priced at £10 per learner with a current discount, making it a realistic option for services managing tight training budgets.
The practical approach for most providers right now is straightforward. Pull your training matrix and identify the gaps, specifically for the 8 topics the new Skills for Care guidance highlights. Next, map those gaps against your team by role. Then close them using training that is documented, verifiable, and aligned to the current statutory guidance.
The training provider matters less to CQC than the evidence that it happened, who completed it, when, and whether competency was subsequently assessed in practice.
What does matter is that your training records are current, your matrix reflects reality, and the care workers in your service have the knowledge to back it up when an inspector sits down with them without a manager in the room.
Get The New Mandatory Training for Care Workers Now
The launch of this bundle by Skills for Care is a signal worth taking seriously.
When the organisation that writes the sector’s training guidance publishes a product specifically aligned to the framework inspectors are actively using, it is telling you something about where the compliance bar is being set and what evidence will be expected when inspectors arrive.
Gaps in mandatory training for care workers are one of the most consistently cited findings in CQC inspection reports. They are also one of the most preventable.
If you want to get your team’s mandatory training in order quickly and cost-effectively, our care refresher training courses are a practical starting point.
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