Oliver McGowan Training for Home Care Agencies: CQC Guide

The Health and Care Act 2022 added a duty for every provider registered with the Care Quality Commission (CQC): its staff must receive training on learning disability and autism that is appropriate to their role. The duty has applied since 1 July 2022. It covers home care agencies whether or not they specialise in supporting people with a learning disability or autistic people.

The Oliver McGowan code of practice became final on 6 September 2025. It explains what "appropriate to their role" means, sets four standards the training must meet, and says what CQC will do if a provider does not follow it. The training is named after Oliver McGowan, whose death in 2016, CQC says, highlighted the need for better training for health and social care staff.

This guide covers England, because the duty sits in CQC's registration requirements. Agencies registered with the Care Inspectorate, Care Inspectorate Wales or RQIA should check their own regulator's expectations.

Where the duty comes from

Section 181 of the Health and Care Act 2022 amended the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and Regulation 18 of the 2014 Regulations, the staffing regulation. Regulation 18 already required staff to have the support, training, supervision and appraisal they need for their duties. The 2022 change made learning disability and autism training an explicit part of it.

CQC's guidance for providers adds two points to its Regulation 18 guidance. All staff must receive training in how to interact appropriately with people with a learning disability and autistic people, at a level appropriate to their role. Staff must also receive supervision that makes sure they show, and keep, competence in understanding those people's needs.

CQC says the requirement applies to all services and all settings, and to ancillary staff such as administrative staff who may have contact with people with a learning disability and autistic people. That includes contact with someone who is not your client, such as a relative who is present at a visit.

The four standards in the code

The code of practice sets four standards. CQC's guidance says all health and social care staff must receive training that meets them.

1. Content. Training covers a minimum curriculum taken from the core capabilities frameworks for supporting people with a learning disability and supporting autistic people.
2. Putting it into practice. Staff get the chance to explore how they will apply what they learn to their own work and the people they support.
3. Live training with people with lived experience. Staff receive a minimum amount of live, interactive training that is co-produced and co-delivered by people with a learning disability and autistic people.
4. Evidence and quality assurance. Training is based on evidence and is quality assured through trialling, ongoing evaluation and accreditation, with people with a learning disability and autistic people meaningfully involved.

Standard 3 is the one that rules out most generic e-learning. A course that is only online and self-paced does not meet it, however good the content.

Tier 1 and Tier 2

The core capabilities frameworks describe three tiers. The code summarises them like this.

• Tier 1 is for staff who need a general awareness of people with a learning disability and autistic people and the support they need.
• Tier 2 is for staff who have responsibility for providing care and support to people with a learning disability or autistic people, but who would seek support from others for complex management or decision making.
• Tier 3 is for staff with a high degree of autonomy who provide care in complex situations and may lead services.

The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training comes as two packages. The code describes them as follows.

The e-learning is hosted on the elearning for healthcare hub. For Tier 2, the code says trainees and trainers must all attend in person.

The packages do not cover tier 3. The code says providers must consider other routes, such as apprenticeships or subject-specific training, where staff need tier 3 capabilities.

What a home care agency is likely to need

Annex A of the code gives examples of roles mapped to tiers. One of them is a domiciliary care agency. It says that because an agency is frequently asked to provide support at short notice, all staff who have contact with the public are likely to need tier 2 capabilities, so they are ready to support people with a learning disability and autistic people.

For most agencies that points to the following, though the decision is yours to make and record.

• Carers and senior carers. They go into people's homes and provide personal care. The code's example says tier 2, which is the Tier 2 package.
• Coordinators, care managers and office staff who speak to clients and families. They have contact with the public, so the same example points to tier 2. The code's primary care example makes the same point about reception and telephone staff who need to recognise when reasonable adjustments are needed.
• Staff with no contact with the people you support or their families, such as someone who only runs payroll. The code's examples suggest tier 1 may be enough for roles like these.
• The registered manager and other leaders. The code's tier 3 example includes registered managers and operational managers responsible for services that support people with a learning disability and autistic people. If your agency supports people in that group, plan for training beyond Tier 2.

CQC's guidance says that if you decide a member of staff does not need this training, you should be able to show a record of how you reached that decision if CQC asks.

Choosing a training provider

The code allows a provider to use training other than the Oliver McGowan package. CQC must take the code into account, and the code says a provider that departs from it must give good reasons and show it meets the requirement another way. In practice the recommended package is the simplest route to evidence, because the code itself says it meets all four standards.

The Oliver McGowan training is a standardised package delivered by approved trainers. To find one:

• NHS England publishes an approved trainer list and a training provider list. It says it does not carry out DBS or pre-employment checks on trainers, so those checks remain with the training provider and the employer.
• Skills for Care quality assures providers that deliver the training to adult social care through its Quality Assured Care Learning Service. Its quality assured training page has a spreadsheet of those providers, updated fortnightly.

Skills for Care's Quality Assured Care Learning Service FAQ says an organisation's own learning disability and autism course cannot be quality assured as Oliver's Training. Only providers using approved trainers and NHS England's standardised materials are eligible.

Funding in 2026-27

Skills for Care's Oliver McGowan training page says the Department of Health and Social Care is continuing funding in 2026-27. It is paid through a ring-fenced pot within the Learning and Development Support Scheme, separate from the scheme's main pot, and claims go through an online service run by the NHS Business Services Authority.

Three conditions matter for planning.

• You need an Adult Social Care Workforce Data Set (ASC-WDS) account to claim.
• The pot is limited. Skills for Care says that if it runs out, no further claims can be made.
• The FAQ says training completed between April 2026 and March 2027 is eligible for reimbursement under the current arrangements.

Check the current guidance before you book, because the rules are set year by year.

Refreshers and staff who join from elsewhere

The code says providers are responsible for making sure staff take learning disability and autism training at least every three years, or more often if they need it. A change of role, a promotion or a learning need identified in supervision are the examples it gives.

Because the Oliver McGowan training is standardised, the code says staff who move between employers do not need to repeat it until the three years are up. For a new carer who has done it elsewhere, ask for the completion evidence for both parts, check which tier it was, and record the date it is due again.

The code also says providers must support staff to complete the training, for example by releasing them from work and giving them access to a computer and the internet. For carers on visit runs, that means planning rota time for the e-learning and the Tier 2 day, rather than expecting it to happen between calls.

Records CQC will expect

CQC says it will use the code when it considers whether a provider is meeting Regulation 18. Where staff have been trained, it will look at how you make sure they are competent and putting the learning into practice. Where staff have not yet had training appropriate to their role, it will check what you have done to reduce the risk to people and what your plan is.

The code says providers should use their existing staff record systems to record completion. Skills for Care says both parts of Oliver's Training have been added to ASC-WDS so employers can record and report on them.

A training record that will stand up to those questions shows, for each member of staff:

• the tier you decided their role needs, and why, including any decision that they need no training
• the date they completed the e-learning and the date they completed the live part, with the certificate
• who delivered the live part, so you can show it was an approved or quality-assured provider
• the date the training is next due, no later than three years on
• supervision notes that show the learning in use, which is the second point in CQC's Regulation 18 guidance

New carers also meet this subject in induction. Standard 16 of the Care Certificate is awareness of learning disability and autism, and the Care Certificate questions and answers name the Oliver McGowan training as the preferred training for it. Ticking standard 16 does not, on its own, show training at the tier the role needs.

Keeping track in homecareOS

homecareOS does not deliver or sell training. In the training and Care Certificate area you choose which courses are mandatory for your agency and can add your own, so Tier 1 and Tier 2 can each be set up as a course and applied to the staff who need them. Certificates are stored on the carer's staff file, an expiry date is flagged from 30 days before it passes, and the training matrix shows every carer against every course. The Care Certificate tracker's standard 16 notes Oliver McGowan training as the preferred evidence.

Training sits beside DBS, right to work and supervisions on the staff compliance screen, so you can see whether a carer is ready to work. If you are also reviewing how your carers record and report concerns, the safeguarding adults guide covers the duty that often comes up in the same inspection conversation.

To see the training matrix with a full team of demo carers, book a 15-minute demo or call 01905 674704.

Sources

• Oliver McGowan code of practice, GOV.UK, for the date the code became final.
• The Oliver McGowan code of practice on statutory learning disability and autism training, DHSC, for the four standards, the tiers, the package details, the three-year refresher, record keeping and the domiciliary care example in Annex A.
• Training staff to support autistic people and people with a learning disability, CQC, for the scope of the duty, ancillary staff, the record of decisions and what CQC will look at.
• Section 181 of the Health and Care Act 2022 and Regulation 18 of the 2014 Regulations, legislation.gov.uk, for the legal duty.
• Training providers and approved trainers, NHS England, for the trainer and provider lists.
• The Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, Skills for Care, for 2026-27 funding, ASC-WDS recording and the two-tier structure.
• Quality assured training and courses and the Quality Assured Care Learning Service FAQ, Skills for Care, for quality-assured providers and the reimbursement window.
• elearning for healthcare: Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training, for where the e-learning is hosted.