Care and Support Planning

Care and support planning training is delivered at your workplace or online. Half day or full day. Built around your documentation systems, your team, and the people you support.

Course Overview

A care plan that nobody reads is not a care plan. It’s a liability.

When care plans are generic, outdated, or written to satisfy an audit rather than guide actual care, they fail the people they’re supposed to support. Staff can’t rely on them. Needs get missed. Risks go unmanaged. And when a CQC inspector or a safeguarding team starts asking questions, the gaps in the paperwork tell their own story.

Care and support planning done well is something different. It’s an active, working tool that reflects a real person’s needs, preferences, and goals. It gives staff clear direction. It changes when the person changes. It’s written with the individual, not about them. This training is designed to help staff make that shift: building the knowledge, skills, and confidence to write, use, and review plans that genuinely guide care, not just record it. The course connects care planning to the Care Act 2014 and its statutory guidance, CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and Skills for Care guidance on person-centred approaches.

Course Details

  • Duration: Half day (3 to 4 hours) or full day (6 hours), depending on group needs
  • Delivery: Face-to-face in-house or live online via Zoom or Microsoft Teams
  • Certificate: CPD-Accredited Care and Support Planning Certificate
  • Awarding organisations: CPD-Accredited
  • Validity: No formal expiry. A refresher is recommended in line with organisational policy, regulatory changes, and staff development needs.
  • Group size: Maximum 15 learners per trainer

Who This Course Is For

This course is right for anyone involved in writing, delivering, or reviewing care and support plans across health and social care settings.

  • Care assistants and support workers
  • Senior care staff and team leaders
  • Care coordinators and key workers
  • Health and social care managers and supervisors
  • New starters working through induction who need a grounding in care planning from the start

It works across residential care, domiciliary care, supported living, and community-based services. For teams where documentation standards need strengthening after inspection feedback or internal audit, it works equally well as a structured refresher. If your team also needs dedicated focus on capacity and best interests decision-making, our Mental Capacity Act and DoLS Training covers that ground and pairs naturally with this course. Not sure which combination is right for your team? Get in touch, and we’ll help you work it out before you commit.

The Legal Requirement

The Care Act 2014 places wellbeing at the heart of care and support. Its statutory guidance is clear: the planning process must be a genuine conversation about people’s needs and how meeting those needs helps them achieve the outcomes that matter to them. That’s not a box-ticking exercise. It’s a legal expectation.

Under CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, providers must ensure care is personalised, based on assessed needs and preferences, with the person involved in the planning, management, and review of their care. The CQC Single Assessment Framework assesses whether plans fully reflect people’s physical, mental, emotional, and social needs, including those related to protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Regulation 17: Good Governance adds a further layer: records must be accurate, up to date, and demonstrate quality and improvement. A care plan that has drifted from reality is a governance failure as much as a care failure.

Poor or generic care plans carry real consequences: unmet needs, inconsistent care across shifts, missed or poorly managed risk, safeguarding concerns where needs haven’t been properly identified, and regulatory findings that affect ratings across multiple key questions.

What the Day Covers

All content reflects the Care Act 2014, CQC Regulation 9: Person-Centred Care, the CQC Single Assessment Framework, and current Skills for Care guidance throughout. Topics covered include:

  • What care and support planning involves and why it exists
  • The difference between needs assessment and care planning
  • Legal and regulatory framework: Care Act 2014, Mental Capacity Act 2005, CQC Regulation 9, and Regulation 17: Good Governance
  • The CQC Single Assessment Framework and what inspectors look for in care plans
  • Person-centred and strengths-based approaches in planning practice
  • Key features of a good, usable care plan
  • Roles and responsibilities in writing, delivering, and reviewing plans
  • Involving individuals, families, advocates, and multi-agency partners
  • Consent, capacity, and best interests in care planning decisions
  • Balancing risk and rights: positive risk-taking within a care plan
  • Confidentiality, data protection, and information handling
  • Reviewing, updating, and ensuring continuity of care
  • Common documentation errors and how to avoid them
  • How care plans support safeguarding and safe care delivery

Every course is also built to include your organisation’s care planning documentation systems, your escalation routes, and your specific regulatory context as standard.

How the Course Is Delivered

This course is delivered face-to-face wherever possible. Care planning is practical work, and the most useful learning happens when staff can discuss real situations, look at real documentation challenges, and work through scenarios that reflect the people they actually support. Remote delivery via Zoom or Microsoft Teams is available for teams where logistics make face-to-face impractical. Both formats are fully interactive, not pre-recorded modules.

Groups are capped at 15 to ensure every learner gets sufficient time for discussion. Every session is built around your working environment, your care planning systems, and your regulatory context. We also design each course to incorporate your specific documentation formats, your organisation’s escalation routes, and any feedback from recent inspection or internal audit. If you haven’t reviewed your care planning standards recently, we can discuss what that might look like during the enquiry process.

  • Clear explanation of the legal and regulatory framework, without the jargon
  • Practical discussion grounded in real care situations, not generic textbook examples
  • Reflective exercises connecting the learning directly to staff roles and the people they support
  • Coverage of your documentation systems and care planning formats

Care and Support Planning or Person Centred Care and Planning?

Both courses sit close together, and the right choice depends on where your team’s gap actually is.

Care and Support Planning (this course): Focused on the planning process itself: writing, reviewing, and maintaining usable, person-centred care plans that meet the requirements of the Care Act 2014, CQC Regulation 9, and Regulation 17. Right for teams whose documentation needs strengthening, who are preparing for inspection on the quality of their care plans specifically, or who need a structured grounding in the mechanics of good care planning.

Person Centred Care and Planning: Focused on the underlying values and approach: moving from task-based care to genuinely person-centred support, recognising barriers, and embedding dignity and choice in everyday practice. Care planning is one part of a broader course about values, communication, and culture. Right for teams who need to address person-centred practice more broadly, not just the documentation that sits behind it.

Many organisations benefit from both, often at different points in a staff member’s development. See our Person Centred Care and Planning course for full details.

We don’t make that determination for providers; the responsibility sits with you. But we do provide guidance throughout the enquiry process.

Certification and Validity

On completion, learners receive a CPD-Accredited Care and Support Planning Certificate.

There’s no formal expiry, but refresher training is recommended to maintain consistency in care planning and documentation across the team, to keep knowledge current when legislation or regulatory expectations change, and to support new starters from the outset. For teams where inspection feedback or internal audit has identified gaps, a structured refresher is one of the most direct ways to address those findings.

Our Mental Capacity Act and DoLS Training are the natural companions for teams who need deeper coverage of capacity, consent, and best interests decision-making.

Why Organisations Book With Prima Cura

Most training providers arrive with a course. We arrive with yours.

Before the day, we gather information about your workplace: your incident reporting forms, your internal procedures, the specific hazards your team actually faces. On the day, your trainer works that into every scenario, every discussion, every practical exercise. If your staff work in a care home, they’re not practising on hypothetical office workers. If your team are lone workers, that context shapes how the session runs.

It means the training lands. Not because it was well-delivered in a generic sense, but because it was relevant to the people in the room and the situations they’ll actually encounter.

A few other things that matter to the organisations who book with us:

  • 98.9% learner satisfaction across all Prima Cura courses
  • All trainers hold Enhanced DBS certificates and maintain ongoing CPD
  • We advise honestly on the qualification level at the enquiry stage. If a different course is a better fit for your workforce, we’ll say so before you book, not after

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Where We Deliver

We deliver in-house training at your workplace or chosen venue across Manchester, Greater Manchester, and the wider North West. We also deliver nationally across England, including North England, South England, London, and Surrey.

All sessions are led by experienced Prima Cura Training instructors. Groups are capped at 15 per trainer to protect the quality of hands-on learning.

Our associate network means we can deliver across England. You can meet the team on our Associates page.

FAQs

What is care and support planning?

It is the process of identifying an individual’s needs, preferences, strengths, and outcomes, and documenting how those needs will be met in a way that is personal to them. Under the Care Act 2014, the planning process must be a genuine conversation with the individual, not a professional assessment done to them. A well-written care plan tells staff what the person needs, how they want to be supported, what risks exist, and what matters most to them. It is a working document, not an archive.

Why is care planning important for CQC inspections?

The CQC looks closely at care plans under Regulation 9 and the Single Assessment Framework’s person-centred care quality statement. Inspectors assess whether plans are genuinely personalised, clearly documented, regularly reviewed, and actively used to guide care. Generic, outdated, or staff-centred plans are a consistent source of inspection findings and can affect ratings across the Safe, Effective, and Responsive key questions.

Can this training be adapted to our organisation’s documentation systems?

Yes. The course can be built around your documentation systems, care planning formats, and the specific needs of the people you support. Whether you run a care home in Greater Manchester, a domiciliary care service across the North West, or a supported living service nationally, the principles are consistent, but the application differs. We make sure the training reflects the world your staff actually work in.

How does the Mental Capacity Act 2005 relate to care planning?

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is directly relevant wherever a person may lack capacity to make specific decisions about their care. Staff must understand the five principles of the Act, how to assess capacity, and how to make and document best interests decisions. Our Mental Capacity Act and DoLS Training cover this in depth and pairs naturally with this course.

Related Courses

Book or Enquire

Book your training or request a quote

Tell us your team size and your sector. We’ll come back with a quote, the right advice on qualification level, and a straight answer on whether this is the best course for your team.

We respond to all enquiries within one working day.

Our Commitment to Quality and Compliance

At Prima Cura Training, all courses reflect current UK guidance and best practice. All trainers are experienced professionals with relevant qualifications and ongoing CPD. Because many of the organisations we support work with vulnerable individuals, all trainers hold Enhanced DBS checks.

This course is reviewed against updates from the Care Quality Commission, Skills for Care, and current UK legislation, including the Care Act 2014, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, and the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014.

You can read more on our Quality Assurance and Compliance page.

Reviewed by Stephanie Austin, Owner and Lead Trainer, Prima Cura Training | 25+ years in health and social care | 15+ years as a trainer | Last reviewed: June 2026 | Next review: June 2027

This page is for general guidance only and reflects current UK legislation and best practice as of the date of review. It does not constitute legal advice. This course provides guidance on care and support planning principles and practice in health and social care settings. It does not replace organisational policies, supervision, or regulatory responsibilities. Providers remain responsible for ensuring care delivery meets current UK legislation and CQC expectations.

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