For providers who know the difference between ticking a box and actually keeping

Prima Cura Training delivers care home training on-site for residential and nursing homes across England. That covers the mandatory training your staff need, clinical and delegated healthcare skills such as PEG feeding and epilepsy emergency medication, Care Certificate assessing, and first aid built around the people you support. Every course is taught face-to-face in your home, by a trainer who has worked in care, and comes with the records you’ll need to show CQC.

We’re based in Manchester, and the training is led by Stephanie Austin, who has spent over 25 years in health and social care. That matters, because the real test of care home training isn’t the certificate. It’s whether your staff can answer an inspector’s questions, and whether they do the right thing at 3am when nobody senior is on shift.

Care home training at a glance

Who it’s for: residential care homes and nursing homes, and the managers, nurses, seniors and care workers who run them.
Courses: mandatory and core training, clinical and delegated healthcare skills, dementia and the Mental Capacity Act, fire safety and evacuation, first aid, and training for managers.
Care Certificate: all 16 standards, with competence assessed in your home by TAQA-qualified assessors.
Where: on-site at your home, anywhere in England, for up to 12 learners per session, planned around your shift patterns.
Price: quoted individually. One all-inclusive price, no hidden fees.
Evidence for CQC: certificates, attendance records, learning outcomes and trainer credentials for every session.
Led by: Stephanie Austin: over 25 years in health and social care, over 15 years delivering training, and a former member of the Skills for Care Personal Health Budgets Steering Committee.
Reputation: over 100 five-star Google reviews, a finalist in the 2026 Female Business Awards, and winner of the Health and Wellbeing Leader award at the Biz Women Awards 2025.
Get a quote for your care home: info@primacuratraining.co.uk | 0333 999 8783
Stephanie Austin of Prima Cura Training showing care home staff how to carry out pre-use checks on a hoist and sling during on-site moving and positioning training

What happened after a nursing home resident broke their arm during a hoist transfer?

A nursing home got in touch with us after a resident broke their arm during a moving and positioning transfer. It was handled as a safeguarding incident, and one of the findings was that staff hadn’t been adequately trained.

When we got there, part of the problem was obvious straight away. Staff had been using the hoist to move the resident from room to room. A hoist is for transferring someone from one surface to another, not for getting them from one part of the building to another, and anyone who has worked with hoists for long enough knows that’s a big no.

We trained every member of staff in moving and positioning people, the manager included. Then we went through their moving and positioning policy and procedures, found the gaps, and helped them put those right, so the practice on the floor and the paperwork behind it finally matched.

It’s the same issue the MHRA raised in its National Patient Safety Alert on patient hoists and slings, issued on 16 September 2026. The alert applies to care homes and nursing homes, names insufficient staff training and competence assessment among the recurring causes of serious incidents, and gives providers until 16 September 2027 to act. We’ve set out what it asks of you in our hoist and sling safety alert blog.

What does CQC look for in care home training?

CQC checks care home training against Regulation 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Regulation 18 requires providers to deploy enough suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced staff, and to give them the support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal they need to do their job. We explain it in more detail in our guide to Regulation 18 staffing.

Inspectors look at your training matrix, but they don’t stop there. They talk to staff, watch how care is delivered, and check whether what your records say matches what your team can actually do. CQC still frames every assessment around five key questions: is the service safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. Training evidence carries most weight under safe and effective.

The way CQC assesses is changing. In its March 2026 update, CQC set out plans to replace its quality statements with key lines of enquiry and to make rating judgements at key question level, with new sector frameworks piloted over the summer. Good training evidence holds up under either approach, because both come back to one question: can your staff do what their role needs?

There’s also a specific legal duty on learning disability and autism. Since the Health and Care Act 2022, every CQC-registered provider must make sure staff receive learning disability and autism training appropriate to their role, and the code of practice setting out how to meet that duty was finalised on 6 September 2025.

Why didn’t e-learning hold up at one care home’s inspection?

A residential care home came to us after an unannounced CQC inspection. Their training was a mix of e-learning and sessions run by senior care workers. The e-learning content was out of date, and 40% of staff hadn’t completed it at all.

During the inspection, the inspector asked staff questions about care standards and legislation. Most of them couldn’t answer the basics. On paper there was a training programme. In practice, it wasn’t fit for purpose.

We started with their training matrix and worked out exactly where the gaps were. We wrote a training programme around those gaps, delivered it, and gave them documented evidence of learning for every session. Along the way we highlighted gaps in their own competency check frameworks, so a senior’s sign-off actually meant something. We stayed on as their training provider until they recruited a full-time trainer of their own.

E-learning has its place. Our e-learning courses work well for refreshing knowledge between face-to-face sessions, as part of a blended programme. On its own, e-learning can’t show that a care worker is competent.

Booking care home training: what managers ask us first

Do you deliver the training at our care home?

Yes. Every course runs on-site at your home, so staff train with the layout, equipment and paperwork they use every day. All we need is a room big enough for the group, plus access to your own equipment for practical courses where it’s safe to use it.

Can you train around shifts, nights and weekends?

We can look at early, evening and weekend sessions, and half-day courses that fit around handovers. Tell us your rota when you get in touch and we’ll be clear about what’s possible.

How many care staff can you train in one session?

We train up to 12 learners per session, which keeps practical courses properly practical. If you have more staff, we’ll split them across sessions that work around your rota.

Do you only deliver care home training in Manchester?

No. Prima Cura Training is based in Manchester and delivers care home training on-site across England, including Greater Manchester, the North West, Surrey and London.

How much does care home training cost?

Care home training is quoted individually, based on the courses, the number of staff and where your home is. One price covers trainer travel, certificates, course materials and support after the course, with no hidden fees.

Which training courses do care home staff need?

Most care homes need the same core: safeguarding, moving and positioning, infection prevention, fire safety, medication, first aid and the Mental Capacity Act. What makes a programme good is the next layer, built around the people living in your home. Skills for Care’s statutory and mandatory training guidance is the usual starting point for a care home training matrix, and it’s where we start too.

Every course below can be delivered on-site. If a different course would suit your team better than the one you asked about, we’ll say so at the enquiry stage, not after you’ve booked.

Mandatory and core training for care staff

Clinical skills and delegated healthcare activities

When a nurse or other healthcare professional delegates a healthcare task to a care worker, Skills for Care’s guiding principles on delegated healthcare activities set out how that should work, including making sure the care worker is trained and competent to do it. Our clinical courses are built for exactly that situation.

Dementia, mental capacity and wellbeing

Health, safety and fire in care homes

Training for managers, nurses and senior staff

Looking for something that isn’t listed? See the full course list, or ask us. Care home training is rarely one course in isolation.

Care worker practising PEG feeding site care on a training model during a delegated healthcare activities course delivered in a care home by Prima Cura Training

Can the Care Certificate be completed online?

No. The Care Certificate can’t be achieved through e-learning or a workbook alone. Skills for Health, one of the three organisations behind it, is clear that skills must be demonstrated and assessed in real work activity.

There are 16 Care Certificate standards. Skills for Care, NHS England and Skills for Health updated the standards in March 2025 and added a sixteenth standard on learning disability and autism awareness.

Our Care Certificate assessing service covers all 16 standards. Steph carries out assessing herself and holds the full TAQA assessing and quality assurance suite, up to Level 4 Leading Internal Quality Assurance. Where selected associates assess, she quality assures their decisions. We assess:

  • new starters working through the Care Certificate
  • existing staff who trained with another provider
  • workers whose certificates have been questioned
  • providers who want a Care Certificate process that stands up to inspection

For a plain-English walk through every standard, read our Care Certificate UK guide and the Care Certificate standards series.

What does the June 2026 Supreme Court ruling mean for DoLS in care homes?

On 2 June 2026, the Supreme Court overruled the Cheshire West “acid test” for deprivation of liberty, in A Reference by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland [2026] UKSC 16. Being under continuous supervision and control and not free to leave is no longer enough on its own to show that someone is deprived of their liberty. The court restored a wider assessment that looks at the person’s whole situation, including whether they object and how they experience their care.

For care homes, that changes how deprivation of liberty is identified and how DoLS applications are approached. What hasn’t changed is the Mental Capacity Act 2005 itself: staff still need to understand capacity, best interests and least restrictive practice. Steph explains the ruling in plain English in the DoLS acid test has gone, and our Mental Capacity Act 2005 and DoLS course covers what it means in practice.

Why isn’t standard workplace first aid enough in a care home?

A care home has the same duty as any employer under the Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981 to provide adequate and appropriate first aid. But the people you support aren’t a typical workplace. Residents may live with dysphagia, epilepsy, diabetes, dementia or frailty, and deterioration can be gradual and easy to miss.

So our first aid for care homes uses the accredited Emergency First Aid at Work and First Aid at Work qualifications, with the practice time spent on the situations your staff are most likely to face: choking, seizures, falls, and recognising when someone is getting worse. All our first aid follows the Resuscitation Council UK 2025 guidelines. You can read how that looked at a nursing home on the Wirral, and there’s more on our page about first aid training for health and social care settings.

Fire safety in care homes: what did we find across nine homes?

Across nine residential care homes for people with learning disabilities, Steph found the same fire safety gaps again and again. Staff couldn’t walk her through their own evacuation procedures. Evacuation chairs were too wide for the staircases. Fire drills were announced to residents in advance, and personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) were near-identical for people with very different needs.

“A PEEP that does not reflect the individual it covers is not a PEEP,” as Steph puts it. After delivering fire marshal and evacuation equipment training, including evac chair training, she spent extra time at each home on walk-throughs and written reports, then worked with the organisation over several months on equipment, plans and individual PEEPs. Read what we found across nine care homes, and our explainer on progressive horizontal evacuation.

Fire safety duties for care homes sit under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005. Our Fire Marshal and Fire Safety Awareness courses are built around your building, your residents and your evacuation plan.

[H2]  How much does care home training cost?

Care home training is quoted individually, because no two homes need the same programme. The price depends on which courses you need, how many staff need training, how many sessions it takes to cover your rota, and where your home is.

One price covers everything: trainer travel, certificates, course materials, and ongoing support after the course. We also build your own policies and procedures into the training, so your team learns how things work in your home, not in a textbook. No hidden fees, no add-ons.

Send us your training matrix, or a list of what’s due, and Steph will come back within one working day with a clear, all-in quote.

Request a quote for your care home:
Complete our enquiry form, email info@primacuratraining.co.uk or call 0333 999 8783

Who have we trained in care?

Our first Greater Manchester booking: a care home a mile down the road

When Steph moved Prima Cura Training to Manchester in 2018, her first Greater Manchester booking was a care home a mile from her house. She approached the owner of the group directly, explained who she was and what she could offer, and supplied the training for their care homes for the first 18 months, until they built an in-house training team of their own.

We don’t mind being replaced by your own trainer. It usually means the job was done properly in the first place.

More care providers we’ve trained

  • A care home chain: fire safety awareness and evacuation equipment training, including evac chair training, followed by months of support across nine homes (see the fire safety section above).
  • A nursing home on the Wirral: the three-day First Aid at Work qualification for nursing home staff.
  • Your Support Matters CIC, Ramsbottom: preferred supplier for social care and first aid training, including for people using Personal Health Budgets and direct payments.
  • Surrey Independent Living Charity (SILC): a preferred supplier relationship of 15 years and counting.
  • Personal Health Budget and direct payment holders: trained in their own homes, work Steph knows from both ends as a former member of the Skills for Care Personal Health Budgets Steering Committee.

Care home training accreditation, certificates and records: your questions answered

Are your care home training courses accredited?

Prima Cura Training is accredited by CPD Assessed, FAIB, WorkSafe, Qualsafe, AOHT and HTN. Our first aid courses are accredited through WorkSafe, FAIB or Qualsafe, and all three meet HSE’s guidance on selecting a first aid training provider.

What evidence will we get to show CQC?

Every session comes with certificates, attendance records, learning outcomes and the trainer’s credentials. We can map it all onto your existing training matrix, or help you build one.

How often do care staff need refresher training?

For most care topics there’s no single legal refresher date, so care homes set refresher periods in their own training policy, usually benchmarked against Skills for Care’s statutory and mandatory training guidance. First aid certificates last three years, and HSE strongly recommends annual refresher training in between.

Who delivers the training?

Stephanie Austin leads Prima Cura Training and delivers much of the training herself. When an associate trainer delivers for us, they’re Enhanced DBS checked, recruited through safer recruitment, and observed through our documented internal quality assurance.

Why do care homes choose Prima Cura Training?

Prima Cura Training was founded in 2015 by Stephanie Austin and is based in Manchester. Steph has over 25 years in health and social care and over 15 years delivering training. She’s a former member of the Skills for Care Personal Health Budgets Steering Committee and holds the full TAQA suite, up to Level 4 Leading Internal Quality Assurance. She knows what a care home looks like at handover, on a short-staffed weekend and on inspection day, and the training is written with that in mind.

Learner satisfaction consistently averages over 98%, measured through quarterly feedback forms and customer surveys. We have over 100 five-star Google reviews. In 2026, Prima Cura Training was named a finalist in the Coach, Mentor or Trainer category of the Female Business Awards, covered by ManchesterWorld, and a finalist for the Female Entrepreneur Award at the North Manchester International Women’s Day Business Awards. Steph also won Health and Wellbeing Leader at the Biz Women Awards 2025.

You can read our commitment to quality and compliance and our safeguarding policy before you book.

Nursing home staff in Wirral, Merseyside after completing a 3-day First Aid at Work accredited qualification with Prima Cura Training.
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Where do we deliver care home training?

We’re based in Manchester and deliver care home training on-site across England. Greater Manchester and the North West are home turf, and we also deliver in Surrey, where Steph grew up, in London and across the rest of England.

Want to combine face-to-face sessions with online learning? Our e-learning portal can sit alongside on-site training as part of a blended programme.

Book care home training

Tell us about your home: how many staff, what’s due, and what’s worrying you. Send your training matrix if you have one. Steph will come back to you within one working day with the right courses and a clear, all-in quote. No hard sell, and if something on your list isn’t needed, we’ll tell you.

Call: 0333 999 8783  |  Email: info@primacuratraining.co.uk

Written by Stephanie Austin, Founder and Lead Trainer at Prima Cura Training | Last reviewed: September 2026 | Next review: March 2027

Important information: training reflects current UK legislation and guidance at the time of delivery, including CQC requirements, Skills for Care guidance and the Resuscitation Council UK 2025 guidelines. Clinical skills training supports, and doesn’t replace, the delegation, supervision and competency sign-off of the healthcare professional responsible for each person’s care. In an emergency, always call 999.