Built for Shared Lives schemes
Shared Lives assurance built around relationships, matching and safe oversight.
Support scheme governance without losing sight of the ordinary family and community life at the heart of Shared Lives. Document edition: not available. Suitability review: not started. Audit coverage: no operational audits tagged for this setting; the common registration readiness audit only. Customer status: edition in development — register interest. The dedicated Shared Lives edition is not yet released; the Care Hub supplies generic master documents labelled for tailoring.
For Shared Lives registered managers, scheme workers and provider quality teams.
Typical regulated activity mapping
- Personal care, where personal care is provided
This is a general service-type guide, not a registration determination. The provider must confirm its actual regulated activities, locations and model against current CQC requirements.
The operational reality
Governance must fit the service people actually receive.
Shared Lives care is delivered through carefully matched relationships in carers’ homes. Assurance therefore depends on robust approval, matching, monitoring and safeguarding that remains proportionate to people’s lives.
Carer approval and review
Keep assessment, panel decisions, learning, checks and continuing suitability clearly evidenced.
Matching and agreements
Show how compatibility, outcomes, risks, finances and household expectations are explored and reviewed.
Scheme oversight
Connect monitoring visits, concerns, feedback and carer support to provider governance.
Safeguarding relationships
Balance privacy and family life with clear boundaries, escalation and independent oversight.
Audit priorities
- Carer assessment, approval and annual review
- Matching and Shared Lives agreements
- Monitoring visits and scheme-worker oversight
- Safeguarding, finances and boundaries
- Carer support, respite and emergency planning
From finding to action
Give every material gap an owner, priority, due date and expected evidence. Keep it visible until a manager verifies that the change is complete and effective.
See audits and actionsEvidence priorities
- Panel and approval evidence
- Matching rationale and reviews
- Monitoring and feedback records
- Safeguarding action and learning
Practical resources
Packs selected for shared lives schemes
CQC registration pack
Statement of Purpose prompts, evidence lists, governance setup and provider readiness templates.
View packCore governance pack
Provider oversight, audits, meeting records, quality improvement and compliance calendar forms.
View packIncidents and safeguarding pack
Incident, accident, safeguarding, duty of candour and learning forms.
Policies
The policies a Shared Lives scheme must hold — and how to keep them alive.
CQC does not want a shelf of documents; it wants policies your staff follow and you can prove are current.
Core policy starter set
Eleven of the twelve policies a provider must hold from day one — safeguarding adults, whistleblowing, complaints, medicines, infection prevention and control, safer recruitment, equality and human rights, health and safety, data protection, business continuity and duty of candour — with a register and an adaptation guide. The consent, mental capacity and deprivation of liberty policy is withheld pending specialist legal review and is not included. Included in the New provider plan and downloadable from the hub’s Documents page as soon as the plan is active.
Policy register in the hub
Every policy with its owner, version, approval and review date, so an overdue review shows before an inspector finds it. One of the hub’s modules, in both monthly plans.
Governance documents in the shop
The Well-led Evidence Suite includes a master policy register, a governance framework, a quality assurance framework, a risk register and a governance and audit calendar.
Audits
Audit modules and audit forms for Shared Lives schemes.
Run audits in the hub with scoring, evidence and actions, or use editable Word and Excel audit forms from the shop. Both are written by care professionals; neither is endorsed by the CQC.
In the hub today
The hub’s audit library holds 23 audit modules, and every organisation sees all of them, each labelled with the service types it was written for. Five apply to every kind of service — CQC registration readiness (27 questions), Continence and catheter care (28), Mental capacity and deprivation of liberty (30), Nutrition and hydration (30) and Supervision and appraisal (26) — and they are where a Shared Lives scheme would start. The other eighteen were written for care homes with nursing, and their labels say so.
Audit forms you can buy today
Caring Evidence Suite · £147 — positive risk and independence review, person-centred care audit and involvement record, dignity observation audit and concern record.
Responsive Evidence Suite · £147 — care and support plan audit, outcomes and activities audit, continuity of carers tracker, communication needs register and accessible information audit.
Complete CQC Evidence Suite · £497 — all six core suites, Service Foundations included.
Free to start
The manager’s monthly audit plan: the 22 audits to run every month, grouped by theme, as a Word document you can adapt. Our template library describes the forms behind the audits — late or missed visit log, medicines audit, incident and accident form, supervision record, governance meeting record — and where a form is inside one of the packs, its page says which.
Mock inspection
A mock inspection that works through the five key questions the way an inspector would.
An assessor looks at carer approval and review, matching, and the scheme’s oversight of arrangements in carers’ homes, then writes up what was found and what to do first.
Book a mock inspection
Scope and price are confirmed in writing before any work starts.
Assessment readiness
Preparation for CQC’s assessment approach: quality statements, evidence categories and what good evidence looks like in practice.
Prepare yourself first
Our guide to using the five key questions to structure preparation, and the free safeguarding assurance quick guide: 15 areas, each with what to have ready to show.
Registration
Registering a Shared Lives scheme.
Registering with the CQC is a project with a checklist, documents and an interview. Start with the free checklist; add the plan, the documents or the consultancy as you need them.
Start free
The CQC registration readiness checklist: 27 items across legal entity, registered manager, Statement of Purpose, policies, premises, staffing and governance, as a Word document.
New provider plan · £299 one-off
The same 27-point checklist run inside the hub with scoring, evidence and actions; a Statement of Purpose template with a prompt under every required section; the core policy starter set; and a 30-minute start-up call.
Documents and consultancy
The Service Foundations Suite includes a Statement of Purpose master, a service user guide, a care service business plan, a registered manager fit-person checklist and declaration, and a certificates and insurance register. For hands-on help with the application and interview, see CQC registration support.
Training
Training for Shared Lives carers and scheme staff.
Training that ends in evidence: the certificate, the competency sign-off and the supervision record, in one place.
Courses
Statutory and mandatory training, the Care Certificate, clinical and specialist courses, and leadership and compliance — delivered live online or at your service.
Training matrix and competencies
The Training Matrix and Competency Pack: an editable training matrix and a competency pack to record who is trained, who is competent and when it lapses. Mental Capacity Act and DoLS is one of the statutory and mandatory courses.
Staff compliance in the hub
The hub’s Staff compliance module tracks each person’s DBS, right to work, references, mandatory training percentage, competency sign-off and supervision dates, and its Supervision and appraisal audit module (26 questions) checks the process itself.
Hub modules
The hub, for a scheme that must show its oversight of arrangements in carers’ homes.
The compliance hub is one system with nine hub areas: Dashboard, Audit library, Action tracker, Evidence library, Policy register, Staff compliance, Incidents, Complaints and Governance report. The two monthly plans include all of them and differ by the number of locations; the New provider plan is a one-off registration pack, described on the pricing page.
Audit, act, evidence
Audit library: run the modules that apply to your service, score each question and attach evidence. Action tracker: every finding becomes an owned, dated action. Evidence library: files with tags, retention dates and verification status.
Register, record, govern
Policy register, Staff compliance, Incidents and Complaints keep the records an inspector asks for; the Governance report brings audits, actions, incidents and complaints into one monthly view for the provider.
Plans
Compliance Essentials £39 a month · Compliance Professional £69 a month · Compliance Complete £99 a month · New Provider Pack £299 one-off. Group pricing is by quote. A monthly plan can be cancelled at any time and keeps access to the end of the period.
Questions from providers
Before you decide whether it fits
Is Shared Lives the same as supported living?
No. Shared Lives has a distinct model involving approved carers and the scheme’s oversight of arrangements in carers’ homes.
Can Haverton replace the approval panel?
No. It can support organised evidence and action tracking; schemes remain responsible for lawful, robust approval and review decisions.
Your service, your evidence