Sample policy · Service user guide

Service user guide template

Statutory anchor: Regulation 9 (person-centred care), Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014 (SI 2014/2936). This guide also engages Regulation 10 (dignity and respect) and Regulation 16 (receiving and acting on complaints), and must mirror the provider's CQC Statement of Purpose. · primary source

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The PDF version of this template is the same content, formatted for adaptation in your document control system. The disclaimer above is repeated on the PDF cover.

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Verivius pack version v1, 2026-06-10

1. What the regulation says

The care and treatment of service users must be appropriate, meet their needs, and reflect their preferences. (Reg 9(1): the headline duty)

carrying out, collaboratively with the relevant person, an assessment of the needs and preferences for care and treatment of the service user (Reg 9(3)(a): collaborative assessment)

Regulation 10 adds the dignity duties that this guide reflects:

Service users must be treated with dignity and respect. (Reg 10(1): the headline duty)

having due regard to any relevant protected characteristics (as defined in section 149(7) of the Equality Act 2010) of the service user. (Reg 10(2)(c): protected characteristics)

Regulation 16 adds the complaints duties that this guide summarises:

Any complaint received must be investigated and necessary and proportionate action must be taken in response to any failure identified by the complaint or investigation. (Reg 16(1): the headline duty)

The registered person must establish and operate effectively an accessible system for identifying, receiving, recording, handling and responding to complaints by service users and other persons in relation to the carrying on of the regulated activity. (Reg 16(2): the system requirement)

The full text is at https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/9, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/10 and https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2014/2936/regulation/16. Where this guide and the regulation diverge, the regulation wins.

2. Plain-English summary

Care and treatment must be appropriate, meet the service user's needs, and reflect their preferences. The regulation lists nine specific things you have to do to deliver person-centred care, including: assessment with the service user, designing care to meet their preferences, involving them and the people supporting them in decisions, providing information, making reasonable adjustments, and considering well-being when meeting nutritional and hydration needs. Service users must also be treated with dignity and respect, and there must be an accessible system for receiving and acting on complaints. The Service User Guide is one of the main ways a service gives people the clear information they need about how it works.

3. Purpose and scope

This guide gives people, families and representatives clear information about what the Service does, what it does not do, how care is arranged, how safety is monitored, how to raise concerns, and how to contact the right person.

It applies to every person who receives the Service, every family member or representative who is given service information, and every staff member who explains the Service before or during care. The guide must stay consistent with the Statement of Purpose, the contract or service agreement, the complaints policy, the safeguarding policy, the privacy notice and any accessible-information arrangements.

4. Roles and responsibilities

5. Operating procedure for keeping the guide accurate

The Service follows this procedure:

  1. Check source documents. Compare the guide with the current Statement of Purpose, service agreement, privacy notice, complaints policy, safeguarding policy and service-delivery arrangements.
  2. Confirm the service-user bands. Check that the people the guide says the Service supports match the bands declared to CQC.
  3. Check operational details. Confirm contact details, office hours, on-call arrangements, fees, visit-monitoring arrangements, complaints contacts and safeguarding routes.
  4. Check accessibility. Confirm whether the person needs large print, easy-read, audio, translated information, an interpreter, an advocate or another communication support.
  5. Issue the guide. Give the guide before the service starts where possible, and again when a material change affects the person.
  6. Record issue. Record the version issued, the date, the format, who received it and any support used to explain it.
  7. Review feedback. Record concerns, complaints or questions that show the guide is unclear, and update the guide where needed.
  8. Approve the new version. The Registered Manager signs off each version before it is issued.

6. How to use this template

This is a guide for the people who use the service. Write it in plain language, and provide it in accessible formats (for example easy-read, large print, or another language) where people need them, particularly for a service supporting people with a learning disability or autism. Everything in it must match the Statement of Purpose; in particular, the people you say you support here must be the same service-user bands you declared to CQC. A guide that does not match the Statement of Purpose is a common reason for rejection.

(Throughout, replace the angle-bracket placeholders with your own details.)

7. About our service

8. What we offer, and what we do not offer

9. How we decide whether we can meet your needs

10. Our fees and charges

11. How we deliver and check our service

12. Your rights and how we treat you

13. How to raise a concern or make a complaint

14. Keeping you safe

15. Our contact details and the terms of our service

16. Accessible formats

This guide is available in other formats on request, for example easy-read, large print, audio, or another language. Ask us and we will provide one that works for you.

17. Records and evidence

The Service keeps a guide-control record. The record should include:

Guide issues, feedback and updates should link to the complaints register, safeguarding record, risk register, audit register or improvement-actions register where they reveal a concern, risk or action.

18. Training and audit

Staff who explain the Service must know where the current guide is held, how to check whether a person needs an accessible format, and how to record that the guide has been issued. New staff should see the guide during induction so they do not describe services the provider is not registered or equipped to deliver.

The Registered Manager audits the guide at least annually and whenever the Statement of Purpose, fees, contact details, complaints route, safeguarding route or service model changes. The audit checks that the guide is current, issued, understood and available in accessible formats. Findings are recorded in the audit register and actions are tracked to completion.

19. Sources and further reading

This template is based on CQC's guidance for providers and managers, the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014, and other topic-specific legislation and guidance listed below. It is a starting point for adaptation, not a substitute for legal, clinical, HR, safeguarding or specialist professional advice.

20. Related reading

21. Document control

Version Date Author Changes
v1.1 2026-07-12 Verivius (sample) Added operational ownership, guide-maintenance procedure, issue record, training and audit controls so the template can be run as a live service-user information document.
v1.0 2026-06-05 Verivius (sample) New template authored to CQC's "what to include" for a service user guide: declared service and limitations (what is and is not offered), the needs-assessment criteria, transparent fees and charging, how the service is delivered and monitored (including call monitoring and punctuality), embedded summaries of the complaints and safeguarding procedures, contact and contractual details, and accessible formats, with a clear instruction that the guide must mirror the Statement of Purpose service-user bands (the CQC red flag is banding misalignment).
v1 2026-06-10 Verivius (sample) Conformed to the Verivius policy standard: added the statutory-anchor header block, the verbatim "What the regulation says" quotes (Reg 9, 10, 16), the plain-English summary, the standard Sources and further reading section, and the closing disclaimer. All original guide sections preserved and renumbered.

This sample policy template was issued by Verivius. It is a template, not a substitute for legal advice or the tenant's own policy-development process. Where this template and live law or regulator guidance diverge, the live source wins.

What good looks like here

Written from an ex-CQC inspector's chair, but the point is safe, well-led care your team can stand behind. Each row shows what strong evidence looks like, what thin evidence looks like, and where the expectation comes from.

The service user guide is the one document in this pack written for the person rather than for staff, and people commit to irreversible things on the strength of it: moving into a home, spending savings on fees, or letting a stranger into the house at seven in the morning. The particular risk sits where the guide drifts away from the Statement of Purpose. A guide that describes support for a client group the service is not registered or staffed for invites a referral the team cannot meet safely, and the person often finds out only after the placement has started and the alternatives have gone. That same drift turns an honest limit into what feels like a broken promise, which is why section 8, what the service does not or cannot offer, protects people more than any warm description of what it does. Keeping a dated record of what each person was given, and in which format, is how a service shows that the expectations it set were expectations it could actually keep.

  1. Whether the service-user bands the guide says it supports actually match the bands declared to CQC in the Statement of Purpose, or whether the guide describes people the service is not registered to support.

    Strong evidence: The guide-control record's 'Statement of Purpose version checked against the guide' and 'service-user bands and regulated activities covered' fields (section 17), plus procedure step 2 confirming the bands match those declared to CQC (section 5).

    Weak evidence: The guide names a client group the Statement of Purpose does not, or the other way round: it mentions dementia, learning disability or nursing care that was never declared to CQC, or the Statement of Purpose has been amended since the guide was written and nobody re-checked. The weakest version is a guide-control record with the 'Statement of Purpose version checked' field blank, so nobody can say which version was compared, or when.

    CQC guidance

  2. Whether the guide states plainly what the service does not or cannot offer, or only lists what it provides.

    Strong evidence: Section 8, 'What we do not, or cannot, offer', which sets the limits of the service so people understand what is not available.

    Weak evidence: Section 8 is left as the angle-bracket placeholder, or filled with a soft phrase such as 'we tailor our support to each person', so the guide reads as an open-ended offer. Families then discover the limits at the point of crisis, for example that there is no overnight cover, that certain medicines cannot be administered, or that the service cannot continue once needs escalate.

    CQC guidance

  3. Whether each person, family member or representative was actually given the guide, in a format they can use, with a dated record, or whether the service can only show that a guide exists.

    Strong evidence: The guide-control record fields for date issued to each person, format issued, communication support used to explain it, and the staff member who issued it (section 17), and procedure steps 5 and 6 which require issue before the service starts where possible and a record of issue (section 5).

    Weak evidence: A current guide sits on the shelf, on the website or in the office folder and everyone assumes it went out. The issue log has gaps for people who started at short notice, or carries a single tick on an admission checklist with no version number, date, format or issuing staff member, so the service cannot show what any individual was actually told before they committed to the service.

    Verivius default

  4. Whether the accessibility need was checked and met (large print, easy-read, audio, translation, interpreter or advocate), rather than assumed.

    Strong evidence: Procedure step 4 confirming the format and communication support the person needs (section 5), the 'communication support used' field of the guide-control record (section 17), and the accessible-formats commitment (section 16).

    Weak evidence: The 'format issued' field reads 'standard' for every person on the list, including someone with a learning disability and someone whose first language is not English, because the question was never asked. Or an easy-read version exists but was simply handed over, with nothing recorded about who sat with the person, what communication support was used and whether the person took the information in.

    Law

    Equality Act 2010 s.20(6) read with s.29(7)(a) and Sch 2 para 2

  5. Whether the guide's complaints summary matches the live complaints policy and names where to go if the person is unhappy with the response, or whether the contact and route are stale.

    Strong evidence: The Complaints Lead's check that the summary matches the live complaints policy and escalation route (section 4), and section 13's content on who to contact, what will happen and how long it takes, and the independent route (for example the relevant ombudsman).

    Weak evidence: The complaints summary still names a manager who left, gives a response time that no longer matches the live complaints policy, or stops at 'speak to the manager' without naming the independent route such as the relevant ombudsman. Nobody spots it because the complaints policy is revised on its own and the guide is never read alongside it.

    CQC guidance

  6. Whether the guide is kept current, re-issued on material change and audited when the underlying documents move, or left to drift out of date.

    Strong evidence: The Registered Manager's audit at least annually and whenever the Statement of Purpose, fees, contact details, complaints route, safeguarding route or service model changes, recorded in the audit register (section 18), and procedure step 5 re-issuing on a material change (section 5).

    Weak evidence: The version and approval date on the front page are older than the last change to fees, contact details, the complaints route or the Statement of Purpose, and the audit register holds no entry for the guide at all. Or the guide was updated but only new people received the new version, leaving people already receiving care working from superseded information about what they pay and who to call.

    Verivius default

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Last verified 2026-07-20

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Last reviewed 10 June 2026