Category
Legal & Regulatory Compliance
CQC registration and inspection, ICO and DBS checks, clinical governance and the rules on advertising.
CQC Requirements
8 guides
As a private GP, are there systems that can help prepare for my CQC inspection?
Yes. Three kinds of system help: your clinical record system, which holds the evidence about patient care; a compliance platform for policies, significant events and audits; and a workforce tool for recruitment checks and training. None of them makes you compliant on its own, but they help you show the CQC that your processes work and save a scramble for evidence when an assessment starts.
As a private GP, will the CQC want to inspect me?
Yes, if you run a CQC-registered private GP service in England, it will be assessed and rated. The CQC decides when by risk, so a new service can expect a first assessment after registration and further assessments when there is concern or when a planned one falls due. If you work under another provider’s registration, that provider is assessed, and your work may be looked at as part of it.
Do I need different CQC registration depending on the service I am delivering?
You need one registration for your provider, but it must list every regulated activity you carry on and every location you work from. Most private GP work falls under treatment of disease, disorder or injury, but services such as ultrasound, ambulatory monitoring, excisions, coil fitting or a slimming clinic can need further activities. If you add an activity or location later, you must have a variation of your registration granted before you start.
Do I need to be registered with the CQC as a private GP?
In England, if you carry on a regulated activity such as treating disease, disorder or injury as a private GP, the legal entity providing the service must be registered with the CQC. There is a narrow exemption for doctors seeing patients face to face in a consulting room while linked to an NHS or other registered provider, and practising privileges can bring you under a hospital’s registration. Remote consultations, employing staff or running your own clinic usually mean you must register.
How do I register my private service with the CQC?
You download the CQC’s new provider application form, complete it with a statement of purpose, the required policies and an enhanced DBS check, and email the whole package to the CQC in one go once your premises and staff are ready. A company or partnership also needs a registered manager, whose application goes in at the same time. The CQC then checks the application is complete, assesses it, usually with an interview and a site visit, and emails its decision.
How long does CQC registration take for my private GP service?
Allow several months. The CQC says registration can take a few months, and its target for 2025/26 was to issue 80% of decisions within 10 weeks of receiving a valid application. Getting ready to apply, including a DBS check that can take up to 60 days, adds weeks or months before that clock starts, so most new private GP services should plan on three to nine months from starting preparation to seeing their first patient.
What is the CQC?
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England. It registers organisations that carry on regulated activities, including most private GP services, then monitors, assesses and rates them against legal standards and can take enforcement action. It does not license doctors, which is the GMC’s job, and it does not cover Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Your first CQC inspection as a private GP: evidence checklist
A newly registered private GP service in England has no rating until the CQC’s first assessment, and you cannot choose when it happens. Be ready to produce evidence quickly for each of the five key questions: safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. That means a clear evidence index, current policies you actually follow, audits, significant events and complaints with the learning, staff and recruitment records, and clinical records that show safe prescribing, results handling and communication with NHS GPs.
Environmental Compliance
1 guide
Professional Standards
5 guides
How do I implement a clinical audit in my practice?
Pick a topic that matters for patient safety or quality in your service, set measurable standards from guidance such as NICE, collect data from your records, compare it with the standards, make changes and then re-audit to check they worked. The cycle is only complete once you have re-measured. A well-run audit gives you evidence for CQC’s well-led and effective questions and a quality improvement activity for your appraisal.
What are the regulations regarding advertising medical services as a private GP?
You can advertise a private GP service, but everything you publish must be accurate, evidence-based and not misleading, under GMC standards, the CAP Code enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority, and consumer protection law. You must not advertise prescription-only medicines to the public, which rules out naming or showing medicines such as weight-loss injections. Prices must be clear and include unavoidable charges, reviews must be genuine, and marketing emails need consent or the soft opt-in.
What is clinical governance, and why is it important in private practice?
Clinical governance is the system through which a healthcare organisation stays accountable for the quality and safety of its care and keeps improving it: audit, risk management, learning from incidents and complaints, patient feedback, staff checks and training, and good records. In private practice there is no NHS commissioner or practice team providing oversight, so the provider has to build it. In England, CQC regulation 17 makes effective governance a legal requirement for registered services.
What is the role of informed consent in private medical practice?
Informed consent is a legal and professional requirement for every examination, test and treatment, private or NHS. Since Montgomery (2015) you must discuss the risks, benefits and reasonable alternatives that matter to this patient, including doing nothing, and CQC regulation 11 makes consent a condition of registration. In private practice it also covers the costs the patient is agreeing to, and it must not be shaped by the fact that the patient is paying.
What measures can I take to prevent clinical errors in my practice?
Focus on the points where private GP care most often goes wrong: prescribing and monitoring, test results that are not followed up, missing history because you cannot see the NHS record, and weak handover to the NHS GP. Put a reliable system behind each one, such as prescribing checks, a results log with a named owner and a routine letter to the NHS GP. Then record and learn from every incident and near miss, and be open with patients when things go wrong.
Registration & Licensing
3 guides
Do I have to register with the ICO if I am practising as a private GP?
Yes, if you decide how your private patients’ records are kept and used, you are a data controller and must pay the ICO data protection fee. At the time of review that was £52 a year for most solo GPs and small practices, or £78 for larger ones. If you are employed by a clinic or online provider that controls the records, its fee covers you, and under practising privileges it depends on who controls the records.
How do I obtain a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check for my private practice?
As a self-employed private GP you apply for an enhanced DBS check with the relevant barred list through a DBS umbrella body, or through the clinic or hospital you work with. If you are registering your own service with the CQC, the certificate must be the original paper copy and no more than 12 months old, because the CQC does not accept Update Service checks for registration. In Scotland the equivalent is PVG scheme membership through Disclosure Scotland, and in Northern Ireland an AccessNI check.
What are the legal requirements for setting up a private GP practice in the UK?
You need a GMC licence to practise with a revalidation connection, indemnity cover for your private work, and registration with the service regulator (the CQC in England) unless a narrow exemption applies. You must also pay the ICO data protection fee and comply with UK GDPR, register the business with HMRC, and meet health and safety, fire, clinical waste, medicines and consumer law. Employing staff adds employment law and compulsory employer’s liability insurance.
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Guides on every part of running a private general practice, from regulation to growing your list.
