HSC England February 2026 release notes

Welcome to the February 2026 policy updates, with a complete overhaul of further policies required for registration. We continue to update this article throughout February.

The registration titles have been reviewed and extensively updated. The Key Points have been removed, as the Copilot skill can be used to request these. Quality Statements are evidenced clearly at the start of the policy, and a detailed Procedures section has been clearly separated out in the policies. For structured details on these policy updates, please see this>

This release introduces a completely redesigned and significantly expanded Consent Policy that replaces the previous legacy documents. The new policy represents a fundamental restructuring with substantial additions to content, enhanced practical guidance, and modernised approach to consent practices. This is a comprehensive policy refresh designed to strengthen regulatory compliance, improve staff understanding, and reflect contemporary best practice in consent and mental capacity legislation.

Update Context: The new consolidated policy for England Residential and Community services addresses the evolving landscape of care delivery, including digital care methods, enhanced CQC quality statements, and clearer operational procedures. It provides significantly more practical guidance to support frontline staff in making complex consent decisions confidently and lawfully.

Released 12/02/2026

Further update to Consent

Two clarifications have been added in response to feedback. The policy now explicitly states who is responsible for assessing capacity: staff delivering care assess capacity for routine daily decisions, while the Registered Manager or senior staff assess capacity for significant decisions. The policy also now makes clear that consent is sought at every care interaction, not only at initial assessment or care plan reviews, reinforcing that consent is an ongoing process throughout service delivery.

Released 14/02/2026

This policy has undergone a comprehensive revision to align with the CQC Single Assessment Framework and current best practice guidance. The restructure introduces a clearer section numbering system, expanded procedural guidance, and a stronger emphasis on Making Safeguarding Personal principles throughout. The update also incorporates the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, updated CQC Quality Statements, and provides more detailed step-by-step procedures for staff at all levels.

Released 12/02/2026

This is a comprehensive restructure and enhancement of the Staff Recruitment Policy, designed to strengthen safer recruitment practices, improve CQC alignment, and provide clearer operational guidance for managers. The new version introduces a fully numbered section structure, adds substantial new content on international recruitment and probationary periods, and reorganises existing material into a more logical flow that supports day-to-day implementation.

Released 13/02/2026

This update adds organisation contact details (phone, email, and address) to the policy so that people can clearly see how to raise a complaint. A new section on complaints about the Registered Manager has been added to the Policy Detail, providing an independent escalation route so that people do not need to raise concerns with the person the complaint is about. A cross-reference to this route has also been added within the complaints procedures. Local authority and social services contact details, including out of hours information, have been added to the external escalation section. One new personalised field has been created, and others added to this policy reused from other areas.

Released 14/02/2026

All substantive policy content — Sections 1 through 6 and the Related Organisational Policies list — is identical between versions. Changes are confined entirely to Section 7: References and Further Reading. The update comprehensively restructures and refreshes the reference section: removing two legislation entries, adding four new ones, replacing outdated CQC web links with current Single Assessment Framework URLs, consolidating a previously fragmented ‘Other Guidance’ subsection into two clearly defined categories, and updating Skills for Care links that had become broken or redirected. No procedures, policy content or personalised fields are affected.

Released 14/02/2026

The redevelopment introduces explicit numbered sections (1–7), a seven-step reporting procedure, a Quick Staff Guide appendix, and significantly expanded content on types of abuse — including new practical guidance on cuckooing, online abuse, domestic abuse (Domestic Abuse Act 2021), and self-neglect/hoarding. Regulatory links are fully restated with explanatory descriptions for each regulation. The Roles and Responsibilities section has been restructured, the MCA lead and deputy contact fields have been removed in favour of a direct reference to the Mental Capacity Policy, and an out-of-hours safeguarding contact field has been added as a new procedural requirement.

Released 19/02/2026

The new version replaces a single continuous narrative document with a clearly numbered, two-part structure — a Policy section and a separate Procedures section — covering 23 numbered subsections. The scope, policy statement and all procedural content have been substantially rewritten and expanded. Key additions include a new Regulatory Links section with annotated regulation and quality statement references, a dedicated PRN medicines section, an emergency prescription process, structured step-by-step procedures for six core tasks, and a new record retention schedule. Terminology has been updated throughout, most notably from "service users"/"residents" to "people we support." The References section has been significantly restructured and expanded. New personalised field content is present.

Released 24/02/2026

This is a major revision of the Medication – Management of Medicines (Community) policy. The new version replaces a long-form narrative policy with a fully restructured, numbered document comprising a formal Regulatory Links section, expanded policy detail organised into 22 numbered subsections, and a standalone step-by-step Procedures section (Section 6). The revision significantly deepens procedural specificity throughout — adding mandated timeframes, numbered action steps, and defined accountability. New content includes comprehensive PRN medicines management, a lone working and visit-based medicines management section, an emergency prescriptions process, expanded record retention requirements, and clear complaint escalation provisions. Terminology has been standardised to "people we support" and the policy suite references extended to include the Duty of Candour Policy and Safeguarding Adults Policy. The references section has been restructured by category and updated to include a 2023 National Patient Safety Alert on oxygen cylinders.

Released 24/02/2026

The new version is a comprehensive structural redraft of the policy. It introduces a formal numbered section architecture (Sections 1–7), adds new substantive content on Transmission-Based Precautions (TBPs), Legionnaires' disease, catheter care, record keeping, and blood/non-blood spill procedures, and substantially expands procedural depth across all 10 SICPs. A new standalone Key Points section and the previous structure's unformatted prose approach have been replaced with clearly delineated, audit-ready procedures. Terminology has been updated throughout to replace "service users" with "people we support," and "Public Health England (PHE)" has been corrected to "UKHSA." The update appears primarily driven by the need to align with the CQC Single Assessment Framework quality statements, the NIPCM, and current UKHSA/DHSC guidance, and to increase procedural specificity for community and domiciliary care settings.

Released 24/02/2026

This is a comprehensive restructure of the Infection Prevention and Control Policy for residential services in England. The new version replaces the previous edition with a fully reorganised document that separates policy detail from operational procedures, adds new sections on visiting during outbreaks, cohort care, and the CQC IPC self-assessment tool, and introduces a structured monitoring and review schedule. The update aligns the policy with Regulation 9A (Visiting and accompanying), introduced by the 2023 amendment regulations, updates the National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness reference to the 2025 edition, and replaces the static notifiable diseases appendix with a link to the live UKHSA list. Terminology has been standardised from "service users/residents" to "people we support" throughout.

Released 25/02/2026