Regulation 18: Staffing
Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/2936)
Last verified by Verivius on 19 May 2026. Next review due 17 Aug 2026.
Plain British summary
You have to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff to meet Part 3. Staff have to receive appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal. Where staff are health or social-care registered professionals, they have to be enabled to give their regulator evidence of meeting professional standards.
Full text on legislation.gov.uk. Treat quotes on this page as targeted excerpts, not as a substitute for the regulation.
Targeted verbatim quotes (2)
“Sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced persons must be deployed in order to meet the requirements of this Part.”
Reg 18(1): the headline duty
“receive such appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform.”
Reg 18(2)(a): support, training, supervision and appraisal
What Verivius does for you
Staffing via People + Documents + statutory notifications
The People register holds the staff record. Training, supervision and appraisal records can be attached to each person via the Documents register. Staffing-shortfall events that prevent safe operation are notifiable under CQC Reg 18(2)(g)(i) and captured in the statutory notifications register. Trends in staffing-related incidents and complaints roll up in the monthly oversight report.
What this regulation does NOT say
Industry-folklore claims that are commonly attributed to this regulation but do not appear in the primary source.
There is a statutory minimum staff-to-service-user ratio.
Reg 18 says "sufficient numbers", it does not set a ratio. Some sector-specific guidance (e.g. for paediatric inpatient services) does contain numeric standards, but those come from RCN / RCPCH / NICE / specific care-pathway documents, not Reg 18. CQC inspectors assess sufficiency contextually.