Supported living software for houses, residents and the team who support them

Supported living software is care management software for providers who support adults to live as independently as possible, usually in their own home or a shared house. It has to do two jobs at once: keep track of the houses people live in, and keep a clear record of the support each person receives.

For most UK providers, that comes down to six everyday questions:

• Who lives where, on what tenancy, and what do we need to know about each house?
• Are the property checks, inspections and servicing for each house up to date?
• What does each house cost to run, and is it paying its way?
• What support did each resident receive today, and who gave it?
• Was medication given and recorded properly?
• Is the rota covered, and can we show CQC what happened?

iStaffRota answers those questions in one place, so your managers are not switching between a house spreadsheet, a cost tracker, a paper medication chart and a rota on the office wall.

Supported living is organised around homes, not just visits. iStaffRota lets you set up each house (or flat, or other housing unit) and see it as a whole.

• Set up each house and unit with its address, key information and the notes your team needs
• See which residents live in which house or unit, and update it when someone moves in or out
• Keep each resident's tenancy record with tenancy management, linked to the house or unit they live in
• Open a house and go straight to the people who live there, their tenancy and their care records

New managers and support workers get the full picture quickly, and the office stops relying on one person who "just knows" the houses.

Housing and care sit side by side, so the office does not need a separate housing spreadsheet running next to the care system.

Every house comes with its own routine checks and paperwork. When those live in a folder in the hallway or a shared drive, it is hard to tell what is done and what is overdue.

With iStaffRota you keep the checks and records for each house against that house:

• Record the property compliance checks your own policies require for each house, with the date and who did them
• Log inspections and servicing against the house they relate to
• Keep house documents and records together instead of across folders and inboxes
• Give managers a clear view, house by house, of what has been recorded

You decide which checks matter for your service. iStaffRota keeps the record, so you can find it when a manager, an auditor or an inspector asks.

Running supported living means looking after properties as well as people. iStaffRota keeps the running costs of each house next to the care delivered there.

• Record utilities for each house
• Log expenses against the house they belong to, so costs do not get lost in a shared spreadsheet
• Use profitability reporting to see how each house is performing
• Invoice for the support you deliver from the same system

Owners and managers can spot a house whose costs are creeping up while there is still time to act, rather than finding out at the end of the year.

Each resident has their own record in iStaffRota, linked to the house they live in. Your team logs support as it happens, so the record builds itself through the day.

• Care plans, risk assessments and care records for each resident and service user, in one place
• Visits and support logged by support workers on the carer app, with notes and timestamps
• Medication recorded at the point of support with eMAR, including as-needed (PRN) protocols
• Incidents and safeguarding concerns reported from the app, with manager review and follow-up actions
• Families, the people you support and their representatives (such as someone with lasting power of attorney) can see visits, notes and medication through the client portal (Professional plan and above)

Because the house and the person are connected, a manager can look at one resident, or at everyone in a house, without stitching reports together.

1. Set up your houses, units and tenancies. Add each house, its details, who lives there and their tenancy.
2. Plan the rota. Build the support rota and publish it to your team's phones.
3. Record support as it happens. Support workers clock in with GPS on the app, write notes, record medication and report incidents on the app.
4. Review by house and by person. Managers check care records, medication, property compliance and house costs, and have evidence ready for CQC.

People in supported living do better when familiar support workers turn up as planned. Offices need to see gaps early and fill them without a round of phone calls.

iStaffRota's scheduling and rota tools help you:

• Build and edit rotas with a drag-and-drop builder
• Match support workers by skills, availability and proximity
• Plan for safe staffing, so each shift is covered by people with the right skills and training
• Flag conflicts and double-bookings before the rota goes live
• Push rota changes to the carer app in real time
• Manage holidays and unavailability in the same view

If the same team works across supported living and home care, one rota means one view of who is where. Our supported living rota guide covers continuity and gap cover in more detail.

The people you support need a team that is trained, checked and where it should be. iStaffRota keeps that information with the rota, not in a separate HR folder.

• A staff training matrix showing who has completed which training and what is due for renewal
• Training expiry alerts, so renewals are not missed
• DBS check status kept on each staff record
• GPS clock-in and out on the mobile app, so you can see that support started at the right house

Support workers get their rota, notes and medication tasks on one app. See iStaffRota for care workers for what your team sees day to day.

Medication is one of the first things inspectors and families ask about. Paper charts kept in each house are easy to miss, hard to read and slow to audit.

With iStaffRota eMAR:

• Support workers record each dose (or a refusal) on their phone, with a timestamp and sign-off
• Managers get an alert when a scheduled dose has not been recorded in the expected window
• As-needed (PRN) medication can be logged with the dose, reason and time
• Controlled drugs can require a second staff member to confirm, where your procedures need it
• Medication history can be exported for audits, and shared with families through the portal where enabled

Basic eMAR is included on Starter; full eMAR on Professional and above. For practical tips, read eMAR for domiciliary and supported living agencies or compare eMAR vs paper MAR.

Supported living providers registered with the CQC need to show that care is safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. In practice that means being able to show what happened, when, and who did it, without a weekend of pulling folders together.

iStaffRota compliance features keep, as your team works:

• Timestamped care and support records for each resident
• Care plans and risk assessments, kept up to date
• Medication history
• Incident and safeguarding reports from the app, with manager review
• Property compliance, inspection and servicing records, kept against each house
• A staff training matrix with expiry alerts, plus DBS check status
• Audit trails on care record changes, and reporting aligned to CQC's five key questions

The records come from everyday operations, so they are ready when you need them. Software cannot guarantee a rating, but it can make the evidence easy to find. See CQC evidence across domiciliary and supported living for what inspectors typically look for.

The service models differ, but the software needs overlap more than you might expect.

Running both? Many providers deliver supported living and home care with overlapping teams. iStaffRota covers both on one platform, so rotas, medication, the carer app and compliance records stay in one system. See domiciliary care software for the home care side.

• Supported living providers who want houses, tenancies, residents, rotas and records in one place
• Home care agencies expanding into supported living, who want to keep the system their team already knows
• Providers running both, who want one rota, one carer app and one set of compliance records

Everyone gets the view they need:

• Owners and directors: one subscription, transparent pricing, profitability by house and a clear view across services
• Registered and care managers: houses, tenancies, residents, records and compliance oversight
• Coordinators: rotas, gaps and changes
• Support workers: the mobile app for rotas, clock-in and out, notes, medication and incidents
• Families and the people you support: portal access to visits, notes and medication (Professional plan and above)

Moving from another system or from paper? Our guide to switching care software walks through the steps.

Most care software only reveals a price on a sales call. We publish ours.

• 14-day free trial
• No setup fees
• No credit card required to start the trial
• UK-hosted data

See full pricing and compare plans

Short, practical guides for providers running supported living on its own or alongside home care.

Explore the features: Scheduling · eMAR · Carer app · Client portal · Compliance · All features