If you work in Welsh health and social care, the regulator you are answering to from 1 April 2026 is operating under different rules from the one you were answering to a year ago. The Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025 received Royal Assent in March 2025 and substantially came into force on 1 April 2026, bringing not-for-profit requirements for children’s services, the first direct payments for Continuing NHS Healthcare, a statutory duty for providers to publish annual returns on their own websites, and strengthened investigative powers for the Care Inspectorate Wales.

Running alongside the Act: published inspection ratings have now been live for over twelve months, the Welsh Government has issued a new statutory Code of Practice on quality assurance and escalating concerns, and CIW has refreshed the guidance underpinning quality of care reviews. The cumulative effect is that the Welsh regulatory environment is materially different from the one most providers built their compliance frameworks around. This guide covers what changed, where the ratings system has landed, and what Welsh care providers should be doing now.

What changed on 1 April 2026

Four reforms commenced on 1 April 2026 that materially affect Welsh care providers.

• No new for-profit providers of restricted children’s services: New for-profit providers of children’s homes, secure accommodation, and fostering services cannot register with CIW from 1 April 2026. Anyone wishing to register must operate as one of four permitted not-for-profit models, including a charitable company limited by guarantee without share capital. Existing for-profit providers face phased restrictions running through to 2030. gov.walesCare Inspectorate Wales
• Direct payments for Continuing NHS Healthcare: Local Health Boards now have the power to provide CHC packages to eligible adults via direct payments from April 2026. For domiciliary and supported living providers, this opens a new contracting route alongside traditional commissioner-led arrangements. gov.wales
• Mandatory publication of annual returns: From 1 April 2026, providers must publish their annual returns on their own website by 30 June each year. CIW will no longer publish annual returns on behalf of providers, and previously published returns will be removed from the CIW website 90 days after the annual return window closes. gov.walesCare Inspectorate Wales
• Stronger investigative powers for CIW: The Act introduces a new duty for all providers to publish annual returns, stronger investigative powers for CIW, and enhanced processes for Social Care Wales in managing interim orders in fitness to practise proceedings.

For providers operating across multiple service types, the compliance work for 2026 sits in three buckets simultaneously: business model review for children’s services, website and publication preparation for annual returns, and contract readiness for CHC direct payments. The principles in winning UK care tenders still apply, but the regulatory environment they apply to is now sector-specific by nation.

The annual return: a single unified return from 2026

The 2026 annual return is structurally different from previous years. CIW’s annual return and Social Care Wales’s annual workforce collection have been merged into a single return, meaning providers complete one return per year instead of two. Care Inspectorate Wales

• Submission window: The window opens on 1 April 2026, with a deadline of 23:59 on 26 May 2026. Once the deadline passes, the system closes. Care Inspectorate Wales
• Publication duty: Providers must publish the return on their own website by 30 June 2026, under the new statutory duty. Care Inspectorate Wales
• Dip sampling: CIW intends to dip sample provider websites and will use annual returns as part of pre-inspection planning and analysis. Care Inspectorate Wales

The annual return now sits as a transparency tool, not just a regulatory submission. Public-facing publication means prospective service users, families, and commissioners can read it directly from your website. Treating it as a marketing document, not only a compliance one, is the strategic shift most providers have yet to make.

The ratings system, twelve months in

The published ratings system launched on 1 April 2025 under the Regulated Services (Inspection Ratings) (Wales) Regulations 2025. CIW’s seven-month review, published in December 2025, found that 1,958 of 2,115 ratings awarded (92.5 per cent) were excellent or good, with the most common area of concern relating to leadership and management. Care Inspectorate Wales

The framework operates across four themes: well-being, care and support, environment, and leadership and management. Each theme receives a rating on a four-point scale of Excellent, Good, Requires Improvement, or Poor. CIW does not award an overall provider rating but rates each of the four inspection themes separately. Care Inspectorate Wales

For providers approaching inspection, the practical implications:

• Display requirements: Care homes must display ratings at the entrance of their premises; domiciliary care services must display them at their registered office.
• Leadership and management is the most common improvement area: Providers preparing for inspection should treat this theme with the same evidential discipline they apply to clinical content.
• Independent review pending: An independent review of the ratings system will be conducted once all relevant services have received their ratings, expected by Autumn 2026. Care Inspectorate Wales

For tender writing, the published rating is now a direct, verifiable input. Welsh commissioners can confirm a bidder’s quality position from the CIW directory in seconds. Bids that translate the four-theme rating into specific operational evidence outscore bids that simply cite the rating headline.

The new Code of Practice and updated Quality of Care Review guidance

The Code of Practice on Quality Assurance and Performance Management, Escalating Concerns, and Closure of Regulated Care and Support Services came into force on 31 March 2026, replacing the 2009 statutory guidance. It applies to local authorities, Local Health Boards, and NHS trusts in their commissioning of CIW-regulated services. The Code encourages an approach focused on outcomes for people, collaborative working, and a culture of learning and improvement. gov.walesgov.wales

Alongside it, in February 2026, CIW published updated guidance on completing the quality of care review, along with a refreshed report template aligned with the four inspection themes. The update is voluntary but signals what good self-evaluation looks like. Completing the review using the new template strengthens annual return preparation — a single piece of work feeds three regulatory outputs. Care Inspectorate WalesCare Inspectorate Wales

For bid writing, the Code matters because Welsh commissioners are now scoring quality narratives against a published statutory framework. Responses written to a generic UK quality narrative score lower than responses that reference the Code’s themes directly.

What Welsh care providers should be doing now

Five priorities sit on the desk of every Welsh provider this quarter.

• Confirm your annual return position: Submit by 26 May 2026 and publish on your own website by 30 June 2026. Test the published link from a public browser.
• Audit your business model if you operate restricted children’s services: Existing for-profit providers should be planning the transition to a not-for-profit model now. CIW cites Cwmpas as a source of business model advice.
• Prepare for CHC direct payments: Provider readiness on invoicing, contracting, and family engagement is the differentiator in the new commissioning route.
• Treat the published rating as marketing, not only compliance: Build it into family-facing materials, tender responses, and recruitment.
• Map your evidence base to the four inspection themes: The same evidence base supports the quality of care review, the annual return, the inspection visit, and the tender response.

Examples of how Welsh providers have positioned themselves through regulatory change are documented in AssuredBID’s case studies.

FAQ

What is the Health and Social Care (Wales) Act 2025? The legislative vehicle for the most significant Welsh social care reform in a decade. It received Royal Assent in March 2025 and substantially came into force on 1 April 2026. It removes profit from children’s social care, introduces direct payments for Continuing NHS Healthcare, mandates publication of annual returns on provider websites, and strengthens CIW’s investigative powers.

Do existing for-profit children’s services providers have to close? Not immediately, but the transitional restrictions tighten progressively. From 1 April 2026 they cannot register new restricted children’s services or vary registration to add new services or places. From 1 April 2027, further transitional restrictions apply, and by 1 April 2030, no new placements with for-profit providers will be permitted from Welsh placing authorities other than via the supplementary placements process. Providers wishing to continue should be planning the transition to a not-for-profit model now. CMS

How does the CIW ratings system work? CIW awards ratings against four themes — well-being, care and support, environment, and leadership and management — using a four-point scale of Excellent, Good, Requires Improvement, or Poor. There is no overall provider rating. Ratings have been published for all inspections since 1 April 2025 and appear at the service entrance, on the CIW directory, and in every inspection report.

How should tender responses reference CIW ratings? State the rating against each of the four themes with the inspection date, then translate each into the system, frequency, owner, and outcome that supports it. Welsh commissioners are scoring against the new statutory Code of Practice and the four-theme framework, so aligning vocabulary with the Welsh framework rather than the English one is the discipline that separates upper-band responses from middle-band ones.

Need support with tenders or compliance? AssuredBID helps UK social care providers prepare stronger bids and win the right opportunities.

You can book a consultation with our tender experts, explore our services, and follow AssuredBID on social media for practical updates, insights, and guidance you can actually use.