Start-ups · Live-in care agency
Live-In Care Agency Registration
The same regulated activity as domiciliary care, and a completely different business. CQC registers you for personal care; what it wants to know is how you supervise someone who is alone in a client’s house for a fortnight at a time.
The regulated activity is ordinary. The supervision evidence is not
Live-in care is personal care under the scope of registration, exactly as hourly domiciliary care is. If you are arranging and directing that care, you register. There is no separate “live-in” activity to apply for.
What makes the application different is that your inspector knows a live-in worker is unobserved for days at a time. So the questions land on supervision, spot checks, escalation out of hours, and how a concern raised on a Saturday reaches somebody who can act on it.
The second question is what your model actually is. If you employ the carers, you register. If you introduce them and step back, you may not — but the line is much finer than most people setting up believe, and crossing it without registering is a criminal offence.
Employing carers, or introducing them?
The answer decides whether you need to register at all. It is a genuine fork, and it has its own page.
Take the four-question testWhat we do
The application, and the supervision structure that makes it credible.
Scope and model
Employed, introductory, or a hybrid that has drifted. We establish which one you actually are before anything is submitted.
Statement of purpose
Written around a live-in model — placement matching, respite cover, breaks and handover — rather than adapted from an hourly service.
Supervision and quality framework
Spot checks, remote supervision, competency review and how each is recorded. This is the part inspectors probe hardest on live-in services.
Out-of-hours and escalation
Who answers at 2am, what they are authorised to do, and how it is evidenced. Bring your on-call arrangement to the first call.
Working time, rest and accommodation
The arrangements that keep placements lawful and sustainable. We are not employment lawyers and will say so when you need one.
Registered manager preparation
The fit person interview, run first by us in the order and depth it is actually asked. Interview preparation.
Before you commit
Live-in care has a good reputation for margin because one placement bills continuously. The risk is concentration: a handful of clients, each worth a great deal, each able to end with a fortnight’s notice.
The operational failure point is almost always cover. If you cannot replace a live-in carer within twenty-four hours, one illness becomes a safeguarding incident. Build that before you build the marketing.
Fees are quoted before any work starts. Nothing on this page is an offer.
Describe the model and we will tell you what you need.
Whether you employ, introduce or have not decided, that is the first thing to settle and it takes one conversation. Thirty minutes, no charge, nothing to buy at the end of it.
Text or WhatsApp
07426 919823If it is easier to write it down than say it out loud, send a message.
Get the scope right and the rest follows.