CQC registration for supported living services
If your staff will give personal care to people living in their own tenancies in England, you need CQC registration before support starts, with your office as the registered location. We prepare your application, policies, learning disability and autism documents and interview from £1,495, and stay with you until CQC makes its decision.
CQC registers the personal care, not the housing
Supported living is not a regulated activity in its own right. What CQC registers is personal care: physical help with eating or drinking, toileting, washing or bathing, dressing, oral care, or care of skin, hair and nails, or prompting with supervision for someone who cannot make that decision alone, given in the place where the person lives. The person’s home is their own tenancy. Your office is the location you register, and the houses are not registered.
The line that matters is between the housing and the care. The same regulations list accommodation together with nursing or personal care as a separate regulated activity, the one care homes register for, and say personal care does not apply where that activity does. So if your organisation provides the home and the care as one package, registering for personal care will not cover it. Carrying on a regulated activity without registration is an offence under section 10 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008.
Read the law (Regulated Activities Regulations 2014, Schedule 1)When supported living becomes a care home
If one organisation provides the home and the care as a single package, the service can amount to accommodation together with personal care under Schedule 1 paragraph 2. That is the care home activity, and registering for personal care does not cover it.
Supported living and home care together
Both are registered as personal care, so one registration can cover visiting home care and supported living. Your Statement of Purpose, policies and registered manager then need to cover both ways of working.
Registered as personal care
- Help with washing, bathing, dressing or toileting in a person’s own home
- Help with eating and drinking, oral care, or skin, hair and nails
- Prompting with supervision for someone who cannot decide to do the task alone
- Support that includes personal care for autistic people or people with a learning disability
- Support that includes personal care for people with mental health needs or physical disabilities
- Shared or clustered housing, including round-the-clock support, where staff give personal care
Not regulated on its own
- Housing management or tenancy support with no personal care
- Help with budgeting, shopping, cleaning or getting out, with no personal care
- Carers employed directly by the person, their family or their attorney
- Agencies that only supply staff to a registered provider
What goes into a supported living application
Written for your service, not a template pack. Stage 1 gets your application in. Stage 2 carries you through assessment and the interview.
Your application pack
Required from every provider
- Complaints policy
- Consent policy and procedure
- Equality, diversity and human rights policy
- Governance and quality assurance policies
- Infection prevention and control policy
- Medicines management policy, including transporting medication
- Recruitment policy
- Safeguarding policy and procedure
- Statement of Purpose
Extra for supported living services
- Business plan and financial forecast
- Service user guide
- Staff training plan
- Positive behaviour support policy and restraint policy, for services supporting autistic people or people with a learning disability, in line with Right support, right care, right culture
- Provider and registered manager forms, completed with you, including the additional forms for personal care and for services for autistic people and people with a learning disability
Assessment, interview and follow-up
- Additional documents CQC may request during assessment, prepared and kept ready
- Registered manager interview question and answer pack
- Two-hour mock interview with written feedback
- Follow-up with CQC on your behalf until a decision is made
- Appeal support if your application is challenged
What CQC tests in a supported living service
CQC reads a supported living application for how each person’s home, rights and support fit together. These are the points we settle with you before you submit.
Tenancy and support kept apart
Your Statement of Purpose, service user guide and business plan should tell the same story: the person holds the tenancy, your support comes under a separate agreement, and ending the support does not end the tenancy.
Occupancy evidence for office and homes
You need the lease for your office and your landlord’s consent to run a CQC-registered service from it, plus evidence of legal occupancy for the supported living settings. Only you can get these, so they are on your checklist from day one.
Right support, right care, right culture
Where you support autistic people or people with a learning disability, CQC looks at the model itself against this guidance, not only the policies around it. Your additional form has to show how the service lines up with it.
Positive behaviour support and restraint
Services for autistic people and people with a learning disability send a positive behaviour support policy and a restraint policy. We write them around the people you will support, with restrictive practice as a last resort that is recorded, reviewed and reduced.
Every group of people described
Your Statement of Purpose has to describe the needs you will meet for each group you support, in CQC’s own terms for service types and service user bands. A learning disability and autism band that is missing or loosely described can get the application sent back.
Learning disability and autism training
Since July 2022 the Health and Social Care Act 2008 has required the rules for registered providers to include training on learning disability and autism for everyone working in the service, at a level that fits their role. Your staff training plan should show it for each role.
Five steps from first call to certificate
Our part is fast. CQC’s assessment sets the overall timescale, and we stay with you through it.
Onboarding
We map your model with you: who you support, where they live, who the landlord is and what your staff will do. You get a checklist of the items only you can get, including occupancy evidence.
Stage 1 pack
Your policies, Statement of Purpose and application forms, including the learning disability and autism form where it applies, once your requirements are met.
Submission
We check everything and support the provider and registered manager applications through the CQC provider portal.
Stage 2 support
Requested documents, the interview pack, a two-hour mock interview and follow-up with CQC.
Decision
You receive your certificate of registration and can start giving personal care to the people you support.
One package, paid in two halves
Our fee covers both stages. The regulator’s fee and your set-up costs are separate, so budget for them too.
CQC registration package
Or pay in full and take 10% off.
Also budget for
Paid to others, not to us. CQC itself charges no application fee.
- CQC annual fee, charged once you are registered and based on the size of your service
- Public and employer’s liability insurance that covers supported living
- DBS checks for your registered manager and support staff
- ICO data protection fee
- Office rent and set-up
- Legal advice on tenancy and support agreements, if you will also be the landlord
If CQC rejects or returns your application before it reaches an inspector, we fix it and resubmit at no extra cost, as many times as it takes. Subject to our terms and conditions.
Buy single documents instead
Statement of Purpose
A CQC Statement of Purpose written for your service type: provider, location, manager and regulated activity details, aims and objectives, and service user information.
Business plan with financials
An editable business plan template, written for home care and suited to supported living operators, with two-year monthly financial projections to adapt to your service.
Registered manager interview prep
Practice questions, answer guidance and feedback for the CQC registered manager interview, shaped around your care setting.
Keep your policies current
CuraFlow Policies keeps your full library up to date with law and CQC changes once you are registered.
Supported living registration questions
Is supported living a CQC regulated activity?
Who should be the landlord, and can it be us?
What does CQC expect if we support autistic people or people with a learning disability?
Can we support people with mental health needs or physical disabilities?
How long does registration take, and what does it cost?
What happens if CQC sends my application back?
The words you will meet in your application
Ready to register your supported living service?
No obligation. We confirm the regulated activities you need, what you still have to get, and a realistic timeline.