Supported living
Supported living is an arrangement where people have their own tenancy or ownership of their home and receive care separately, and it requires CQC registration where the care provided includes personal care.
Supported living in practice
The defining feature is the separation of housing from care. The person is a tenant in their own home rather than a resident in the provider’s setting, and that has consequences for everything from how risk is managed to what the provider may and may not decide.
CQC generally treats the location as the premises the provider coordinates care from, rather than each individual property. The label alone does not trigger registration; carrying on a regulated activity does.
Applications are examined closely where the service supports autistic people or people with a learning disability, because the model itself is assessed against Right Support, Right Care, Right Culture. Arrangements that look like a care home with tenancies attached tend not to survive that scrutiny.
Back to the glossaryRelated definitions
Statement of Purpose
A Statement of Purpose is the document a CQC-registered provider must keep that sets out its aims and objectives, the regulated activities it provides, the service user groups it serves, and the addresses it operates from.
Read definitionRegulated activity
A regulated activity is an activity listed in the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 that may not lawfully be carried on in England without registering with CQC.
Read definitionPersonal care
Personal care is the regulated activity of providing physical assistance with, or prompting and supervising, things like washing, dressing, eating and using the toilet, where the person cannot do them unaided.
Read definitionRegistering with CQC or Ofsted?
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