Care Certificate: what UK care workers and employers need to know

The Care Certificate is the induction standard for people who are new to health and adult social care in England. It sets out the knowledge, skills and behaviours that new care workers need before they support people without direct supervision. It was launched in April 2015 by Skills for Care, Skills for Health and Health Education England (now NHS England) after the Cavendish Review, and it was updated to 16 standards in March 2025. This guide explains what the Care Certificate covers, who it applies to, how the Care Quality Commission uses it during inspections, and where the online learndirect course fits.

What the Care Certificate actually is

The Care Certificate is best described as an employer-led certificate of competence, not a regulated qualification. It has three defining features that are easy to misunderstand:

• It is not accredited by Ofqual. The Care Certificate standards themselves are not a regulated qualification. Skills for Care states plainly that the standards do not require accreditation by any awarding body or higher education institution.
• The employer awards it. To be awarded the Care Certificate, the worker must meet all outcomes and assessment requirements for all 16 standards, and it is the employer (an NHS trust or a CQC-registered care provider) who signs off and issues the certificate using the national template.
• Assessment happens in the workplace. Learners can build knowledge online or in a classroom, but the practical assessment evidence must be collected during real work activity. That is why an online course can cover the knowledge element but cannot, on its own, award the Care Certificate.

This matters for two reasons. First, buyers who ask for a "Care Certificate" often really want the knowledge element they can deliver online, with observation and sign-off happening in-house. Second, since June 2024, the Department of Health and Social Care has been rolling out a separate, Ofqual-regulated Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification built on the same 16 standards. The two are related but distinct: the Care Certificate is a portable induction standard; the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate is a regulated qualification that takes new learners around 6 to 8 months.

Who does the Care Certificate apply to?

Skills for Care and NHS England target the Care Certificate at "new staff, new to care". That covers:

• Healthcare assistants, assistant practitioners and care support workers in the NHS with direct patient contact.
• Adult social care workers giving direct care in residential and nursing homes, hospices, home care or domiciliary care.
• Other roles in health and social care where the employer decides the standards apply, for example volunteers with direct service-user contact, or existing staff who move to a new setting.

Children's social care workers fall outside the remit of the Care Certificate. Existing staff who were already in post before April 2015 were never required to complete it retrospectively.

The Care Certificate is portable. Once a worker has been awarded it, they should not need to complete it again when they move employer, though employers can still ask for refresher training or evidence that competencies have been retained.

Is the Care Certificate a legal requirement?

Strictly, no. The Care Certificate is not a statutory legal requirement in UK law. But in practice, for CQC-registered providers, it functions as the expected induction standard for direct care staff.

Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014

Regulation 18 of the 2014 Regulations requires registered providers to deploy sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced persons and to give staff the support, training and appraisal necessary for them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform. CQC uses that regulation as the backbone for how it checks induction.

What the CQC actually looks for

Skills for Care's own recruitment agency guidance is direct: "Achieving the Care Certificate is an expectation of those new to health and social care. The Care Quality Commission will check on its implementation during inspections. There is a risk to CQC regulated Care Providers' inspection results if they do not use this induction standard." In practice, inspectors ask providers to evidence:

• Which new starters have started the Care Certificate, and when.
• Which have completed all 16 standards and been signed off.
• Where completion is partial, what the plan is to complete it.
• How assessment was carried out (observation, professional discussion, workplace evidence), not just whether e-learning modules were ticked off.

The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care in England, published in July 2025, went further and recommended that employers should aim for 80% of new direct care staff to hold the Care Certificate qualification within the next five years. That is a strategic target, not a legal one, but it is now the direction of travel for commissioners and inspectors.

The 16 Care Certificate standards

The standards were updated in March 2025 to align with sector developments and the launch of the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification. A new standard was added to capture awareness of learning disability and autism, moving that content out of the old Standard 9 and into its own place. The current 16 standards are:

1. Understand your 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 autism

Between them, they cover the fundamentals of safe, compassionate, person-centred care: the legal duties every care worker sits under, safeguarding of adults and children, moving and handling, infection prevention, mental health and dementia awareness, and basic life support. The addition of learning disability and autism awareness in 2025 reflects the Oliver McGowan mandatory training programme rolled out across the NHS and social care from 2022.

The state of the workforce in 2024/25

Skills for Care's State of the adult social care sector and workforce in England 2025 report gives the most authoritative view of where the sector actually is on the Care Certificate:

• 56% of all filled posts in adult social care had achieved, were working towards, or had partially completed the Care Certificate standards in 2024/25. The remaining 44% had not started or were not engaged.
• 69% of direct care workers had engaged with the Care Certificate standards, rising to 68% among care workers specifically recruited domestically.
• 54% of direct care staff did not hold a relevant social care qualification in 2024/25. Of those, 69% had at least engaged with the Care Certificate, so the induction standard is often the only formal training record on file.
• Turnover in adult social care is around 10 percentage points lower for staff who hold a relevant qualification compared with those who do not. Regular training reduces turnover by a similar margin.

Put together, that is why regulators, commissioners and the Workforce Strategy are pushing hard on Care Certificate completion: it is the single most reliable proxy for whether new care staff have had a proper induction, and it correlates directly with retention.

How the learndirect online Care Certificate course fits

The learndirect Care Certificate course is an online, CPD-certified programme that delivers the knowledge element of all 16 Care Certificate standards. It is designed as the classroom-based half of a proper Care Certificate induction. New starters complete the knowledge online, then their employer signs off the practical, workplace-observation elements before awarding the Care Certificate itself.

• Coverage: all 16 standards, from Understanding your role and Duty of care through to Infection prevention and control and Awareness of learning disability and autism.
• Format: self-paced, online, mobile-friendly, with knowledge checks after each standard.
• Time: around 4 to 6 hours of study, split across the 16 standards.
• Certificate: instant, downloadable CPD certificate on completion of the knowledge element, suitable for a care worker's induction file and available for CQC inspection.
• Price: £25 per learner, with bulk pricing and a multi-user admin portal for care providers rolling out training to a team.

Providers typically pair the online course with in-house observation, a written workbook (Skills for Care publishes one free of charge), and sign-off from a manager or assessor. That combination lets a care provider evidence both the theoretical knowledge and the practical competence that inspectors expect for Regulation 18.

Practical tips for care providers rolling out the Care Certificate

• Start on day one. Skills for Care recommends a 12-week completion window from the point of hire. Slippage tends to happen when providers wait until the third or fourth week to begin.
• Log the standards individually. CQC inspectors ask which standards have been signed off, not just whether the Care Certificate is "done". Track completion at the standard level in your training log.
• Assessment must be observation-based. An e-learning score alone is not enough. Combine online knowledge with a named assessor who observes the worker in practice and signs off the workplace evidence.
• Keep the certificate template. Use the national template from Skills for Care and, if you add your own branding, keep the Care Certificate logo in the top right. Awarding your own bespoke certificate without the national template puts you outside the framework.
• Plan for the Level 2 next. The Workforce Strategy expects care staff to progress to Level 2 competence within three years of starting in the sector. Track which staff should be enrolled on the Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification (which is funded through the Learning and Development Support Scheme).

Who signs off the certificate

The employer is responsible for awarding the Care Certificate, using the national template from Skills for Care. The person signing off should be a manager or assessor competent to judge the worker's practice against each standard. Skills for Care does not require external quality assurance, but many providers choose to have their sign-off process audited internally as part of Regulation 17 (good governance) evidence.

If a worker leaves before the Care Certificate is complete, the certificate cannot be awarded, but the standards they did complete should be recorded. A new employer can then pick up from where they left off, rather than restarting from Standard 1.