Would you like to support living as a Plan B?

CQC The right support, the right care, the right culture This guidance means some places are no longer suitable to provide residential care services to people with autism or learning disabilities. Therefore, providers should consider other ways to utilize these spaces. A question we often get asked is, “Can I use it for assisted living?”

CQC position

The regulator’s position on supported living schemes and other comparable schemes is set out in its guidance. Assisted Living: Guidance on Regulated Activities for Supported Housing and Special Care Housing Providers (October 2015).

CQC broadly defines supported living schemes as schemes that:

• People are provided with personal care as part of the support they need to live in truly ‘own’ accommodation.
• Accommodation is often shared, but can also be a single household.
• Personal care is provided under a separate contractual arrangement from the individual’s residence.;
• As a result, there is a substantial separation between the provision of accommodation and the provision of care.

In this way, CQC distinguishes supported living schemes from residential care where accommodation forms part of CQC-regulated care provision. This distinction is important because it places accommodation outside the CQC’s regulatory regime as it does not form an essential feature of regulated care provision.

Practical considerations

Demonstrate local needs and gain support from local commissioners. It may be helpful to present suggestions as a ‘step down’ in the care pathway.

• Consider suitability of location and environment for supported residential tenants. If the CQC was not prepared to register a service, the Commissioner may also decide that it is inappropriate.

• Ensure that your proposed model is consistent with CQC’s definition of supported living (or your chosen equivalent scheme) and that the model places accommodation outside of CQC’s regulatory regime for residential care. confirm. A key feature is the strong separation between the provision of regulated care and the provision of accommodation. To do this, we match the proposed model with the description of the recommended scheme contained in CQC. considerate housing guidance.

• Review financial metrics to confirm the business case for assisted living plans over residential services. What if the scheme only supports fewer than seven residential tenants?

landlord function

Remember that you really need to separate the provision of care from the provision of accommodation. Failure to do so could result in the service being considered a de facto care home and the provider committing the offense of not having the correct registration. .

Think carefully about your landlord. Will the property be sold or rented to a third party or a registered social landlord (in which case legal governance will need to be considered carefully)? Would you like to establish a separate organization to perform this function?

Careful consideration should also be given to the tenancy agreement used and how the provision of care and provision of accommodation are actually separated. Again, CQC’s guidance provides a list of potentially relevant factors against which the model should be checked (pages 9-10).

There are other important asset elements to consider, such as planning, configuration, staff, and on-site facilities.

Target housing regulations

Finally, providers should be aware that the Supportive Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act 2023 came into force on 29 August 2023. This legislation requires local authorities in England to review supported housing and develop strategies around it. It also gives the Secretary of State the power to introduce national standards and establish regulations for local licensing systems. It is therefore very likely that assisted living will soon be subject to its own regulatory scheme.

This article first appeared in the March/April 2024 issue of the magazine. care home management magazine.

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