All registered managers need to complete a CQC PIR return every year. These forms help to inform the Care Quality Commission (CQC) about your care service, and they are a legal requirement.
Your PIR return will be emailed to you each year. Whether you manage a residential or domiciliary care service, you’ll need to complete and return it within four weeks.
In this article, we’ll look at what a CQC PIR return is, why it’s important, when you need to complete it, and how to prepare your CQC PIR answers. We’ll also talk about where you can get more CQC PIR guidance, if you need more help.
Table of Contents
PIR CQC meaning
PIR stands for Provider Information Return. It’s a detailed self-assessment document, which asks a range of questions about a care service.
Every year, registered managers must complete a PIR form, so that the CQC knows key details about the service they manage.
As a registered manager, completing and submitting your PIR is a legal requirement.
Preparing your PIR return can be time-consuming. You need to give precise answers for many of the questions. Do you know how many scheduled domiciliary care visits your service has made over the last 28 days? How many were missed? How many of them were under 15 minutes?
Using care planning software can make it much easier to complete your CQC PIR answers. Software like PASS can easily generate reports and show you real-time data, so you have the latest accurate figures at your fingertips.
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How have PIR forms changed over the years?
If you last completed a PIR for the CQC in 2019, you might find that the form has changed over the years.
For example, in 2026, CQC PIR questions must be completed online – there’s no paper version available. You’ll receive a link to your PIR questions, and should answer them online.
Answering the CQC PIR questions online means that you’ll automatically be notified of obvious errors – for example, missing an answer, entering a response that’s too short, or inputting text when the question asks for a number only.
In 2024, the PIR forms were updated to more closely align with the CQC’s assessment framework.
When do I need to complete the CQC PIR questions?
If you’re the registered manager of an adult social care service, you’ll receive an email with a link to your PIR form.
The CQC will send this email once a year, usually around the anniversary of your service’s first site visit.
When you receive the CQC PIR email, you must complete and return your PIR form within four weeks. You must not share the link to the form with anyone, and you must complete it yourself.
Your service’s nominated individual will also be told that the PIR form has been sent. However, they won’t get a link to the form. If you are a nominated individual for a care service and you notice that the registered manager’s details are wrong, there will be a link in your email to update their information.
The CQC PIR questions
There are different PIR questions, depending on whether you’re the registered manager of a residential service or provide support to clients in the community.
There are also separate questions for Shared Lives providers and specialist college services.
When you receive your email link to the PIR form from the CQC, it should contain the correct questions for your service. If you are registered as a dual service location, you’ll receive a PIR form for each service.
CQC PIR questions for residential care providers
If you are the registered manager of a residential adult social care service, you’ll need to answer questions in the following categories:
- Successes and barriers to good care: Here, you’ll explain what is going well for your care service. You should include examples, and feedback from clients and their families. You’ll also be asked about barriers that you are facing that make it harder to provide good care – and how you are dealing with them. You should include examples in your answer, but be careful not to include names or identifying details.
- People who use your service: This section looks at how many clients you support, and how many have needed to leave over the last 12 months. You will be asked specific questions about your client population, including how many fall into various age groups, have certain health conditions, or are non-verbal. In this category, there are also questions about restrictions and restraints. Additionally, you will need to answer questions about your clients’ funding.
- Services you provide: In this section, you will be asked whether you use video monitoring cameras in your location, and why.
- Staff: This includes questions about the number of staff you employ, staff turnover, and current vacancies. You’ll also be asked about your use of agency staff. There are also questions about your team’s qualifications and training.
- Commissioners and partnerships: In this section, you’ll need to talk about which organisations commission care from your service. There are also questions about how you work in partnership with other specialist services, such as speech and language therapists, reablement services, and dementia specialists.
- Quality assurance and risk management: This will include questions about infection control, medication management, complaints and how the service has handled them, safety and duty of candour, and your record-keeping system.
- Anything else: If there is anything about your service that hasn’t been covered in the previous sections, this is where you can mention it.
You can find the complete list of PIR questions for residential care providers on the CQC website.
CQC PIR questions for adult social care community services
If your service provides domiciliary care, you’ll answer many of the same questions as residential care providers. However, there are some additional categories too:
- Successes and barriers to good care
- People who use your service
- Staff
- Commissioners and partnerships
- Quality assurance and risk management
- Service settings: In this section, you’ll enter the number of people who you support as a domiciliary care agency, Supported Living service, or Extra Care Housing service. If you don’t provide one or more of these services, simply enter 0 in those sections. After completing this section, you’ll move on to answer questions about the services you do provide.
- Domiciliary Care Agencies: In this section, you’ll need to give the precise number of care visits your service has made in the last 28 days, and the number of scheduled missed visits. You’ll be asked how many visits needed more than one carer, how many visits were shorter than 15 minutes, and how many hours of care your service provided in the last 28 days. You’ll also need to answer questions about the number of zero-hours staff you employ, and share some details about how your care staff are paid. If you use home care software, such as PASS, you should be able to access this information easily.
- Supported Living: Here, you’ll answer questions about the number of Supported Living schemes your staff visit to provide personal care, and the number of people you support. You’ll also be asked about whether your clients have freedom of movement, if any clients are deprived of their liberty due to being under continuous or complete supervision and control, whether there are restrictions on visitors, and if you manage the finances of any of your service users.
- Extra Care Housing: The questions for Extra Care Housing are the same as Supported Living schemes, focusing on the number of clients supported, and whether they have any restrictions placed on them.
- Anything else: If these questions haven’t covered everything about your care service, in this section you can include extra details.
You can find the complete list of PIR questions for domiciliary care providers on the CQC website.
How to prepare your CQC PIR answers in 2026
Make sure you have all the necessary information before you get started. You will need to answer the questions in order; you can’t jump ahead to another section until you’ve completed the ones that came before it. So, when you begin answering the CQC PIR questions, be sure to have your facts and figures ready. If you don’t already use care management software, consider making the switch this year – it will simplify your PIR process!
Use a computer with a reliable internet connection. The CQC recommends using Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge to access and complete the form.
Set aside enough time to complete the Provider Information Return. You will have four weeks from the date of the email. However, as all care providers know, you have a demanding job – especially if you manage a smaller care organisation and find yourself covering care calls on particularly busy days. Look at whether you should arrange for extra cover or agency staff for a few days while you complete the PIR form.
Focus on the key questions and quality statements in your answers. Make sure that your CQC PIR answers include examples of how your service is responsive, well-led, safe, caring and effective.
Follow all of the instructions in the CQC PIR guidance. Some questions will have a word count, or request a numeric value only. Make sure that you give your answer in the correct format. If the CQC need further information, they will contact you.
Only include details about services and people who deliver regulated activities, such as personal care. Even if your staff team provides other services, like housekeeping or activity support, the CQC PIR questions only cover regulated activities.
Avoid using special characters in your CQC PIR answers. The form won’t accept hyphens or other special characters.
Write out any longer answers in a separate document. The form should automatically save your answers, but saving them yourself is always a good idea. Write them out in another document, and copy and paste them into the PIR form.
What happens after I submit my CQC PIR form?
Once you’ve submitted your CQC PIR return, you’ll receive a copy of your answers via email.
The CQC will look over your responses, and may contact you for further information.
Depending on your organisation’s policies and procedures, you may also need to send your completed PIR answers to your operations director, regional manager, or chief executive.
Where can I get further CQC PIR guidance in 2026?
If you need more help with your CQC PIR answers, you can find information about completing your PIR forms on the CQC website. This will always be the most accurate and up-to-date guidance.
You can also contact the CQC team on 03000 616161.
If you work for an organisation that manages multiple care homes, your regional manager or director may also be able to help. They might be able to show you an example of a completed CQC PIR form for another location, or even last year’s answers for your care service.
However, completing the Provider Information Returns can still be time-consuming – partly because you need to have a lot of current information at your fingertips.
You can make this easier for yourself by using care management software for your care service. Care management software, like PASS, can collate this information for you and generate reports, so you can easily answer questions about your clients’ health conditions, number of care hours, and medication management.
Conclusion: CQC PIR guidance
The CQC sends out a provider information return to all registered managers every year. It must be completed online, within four weeks.
CQC PIR questions are comprehensive, and allow you to share a complete picture of your care service. They might be time-consuming to complete, but they’re a legal requirement.
To make it easier to answer your PIR questions, make sure that you set aside plenty of time, and have all of the necessary figures to hand. Using care management software like PASS can make it quicker to access this information – so you can complete the PIR quickly, and continue providing great care for your clients.
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