Digital Care
residents hub
careers
Moreways Healthcare
Premier Care
Operational Leadership • Supported Living • Quality
Service Manager
Lead one of Moreways Healthcare’s supported living services with clear accountability for quality, staffing, safeguarding, operational performance and the outcomes achieved by the people we support.
About the role
Moreways Healthcare provides specialist supported living and community-based services for adults with mental health needs, learning disabilities, autism, complex emotional needs and other conditions requiring structured or intensive support.
Our work also includes forensic and step-down pathways, supporting individuals as they move from hospital, secure or more restrictive environments towards greater independence in the community.
As Service Manager, you will take operational responsibility for the quality, safety and effectiveness of the service you lead. You will provide clear direction to the staff team, maintain strong professional standards and ensure that support remains genuinely person-centred, outcome-focused and proportionate to individual needs.
This is a hands-on leadership role. You will need to understand what is happening within the service, know the people we support, recognise emerging risks, develop your staff and maintain effective relationships with commissioners and other professionals.
People
Recruit, develop and lead a capable staff team with clear expectations, accountability and professional standards.
Quality
Ensure support plans, records, safeguarding, medication processes and service systems consistently meet expected standards.
Outcomes
Keep the service focused on independence, stability, recovery and measurable progress rather than simply maintaining placements.
Partnerships
Build credible relationships with commissioners, social workers, mental health teams and other professionals involved in people’s support.
Key responsibilities
- Provide visible, accountable leadership for the day-to-day operation of the supported living service.
- Ensure people receive safe, respectful and person-centred support in accordance with agreed support plans and commissioned arrangements.
- Maintain appropriate staffing levels and effective deployment across day, late and waking-night shifts.
- Manage staff performance, conduct supervision and support professional development.
- Ensure new employees receive effective induction and complete required mandatory and service-specific training.
- Monitor staff practice and address poor performance, conduct or standards promptly and appropriately.
- Ensure support plans, risk assessments, reviews and other key documents remain current and reflect actual needs.
- Maintain effective safeguarding practice and ensure concerns are recognised, escalated and documented appropriately.
- Ensure incidents are reviewed, learning is identified and agreed actions are completed.
- Oversee safe medication-support systems where these form part of the service.
- Ensure daily records, handovers and other service documentation are accurate, professional and useful.
- Lead regular reviews of people’s progress and ensure staff remain focused on agreed outcomes.
- Promote independence and challenge unnecessary restrictions or dependency within support arrangements.
- Ensure the service maintains a safe, well-organised and respectful living environment.
- Coordinate effectively with the organisation’s on-call arrangements and respond appropriately to operational concerns.
- Maintain constructive relationships with families and carers where appropriate.
- Represent Moreways Healthcare professionally in meetings, reviews and multidisciplinary discussions.
- Monitor performance indicators, service quality and identified improvement actions.
- Contribute to referral assessment, compatibility considerations and transition planning for new placements.
- Support occupancy, placement sustainability and appropriate service development without compromising quality or suitability.
How we expect a Moreways service to operate
A well-managed supported living service requires more than maintaining a rota and responding to incidents. The manager should create a coherent operating environment in which staff understand the purpose of the service and individuals experience consistent support across different shifts.
Assess
Understand people’s current needs, risks, strengths and intended outcomes.
Plan
Ensure staffing, support plans and risk arrangements are aligned with what has actually been commissioned and assessed.
Deliver
Lead staff to provide consistent, respectful and outcome-focused support in everyday practice.
Review
Measure progress, identify emerging issues and adjust support when needs or risks change.
Governance, safeguarding and risk
Moreways Healthcare supports some individuals with significant mental health, behavioural or forensic histories. Strong service management is therefore essential to ensure that risk is understood and managed without drifting into unnecessarily restrictive practice.
Depending on the person, arrangements may include Section 37/41 conditional discharge, Section 117 aftercare, MAPPA involvement, forensic community-team oversight or other professionally agreed risk-management measures.
As Service Manager, you will ensure staff understand and consistently follow relevant support plans, relapse indicators, contingency arrangements and restrictions. You will also need to identify where plans no longer reflect current circumstances and seek review through the appropriate professional channels.
You will maintain a strong safeguarding culture in which staff recognise vulnerability, exploitation, neglect, abuse and poor practice and know how to respond.
Leading the staff team
The quality of a service depends heavily on the quality of its leadership. You will set expectations for how staff communicate, document support, respond to risk and engage with the people living in the service.
Supporting independence and progression
Moreways Healthcare’s supported living services should enable people to develop rather than create unnecessary long-term dependency on staff.
You will therefore ensure that teams understand each person’s intended outcomes and support people to develop practical living skills, healthier routines, stronger community connections and greater confidence.
Where an individual can safely progress towards lower levels of support, the service should actively contribute to that progression through evidence-based review rather than maintaining support at a higher level simply because it has historically been provided.
Working with commissioners and professionals
Service Managers are an important point of contact between Moreways Healthcare and the wider professional network.
Depending on the people within your service, you may work with:
You will be expected to communicate professionally, respond to requests in a timely way, provide accurate information and represent the organisation credibly during reviews, safeguarding discussions and other professional meetings.
Referral, assessment and transitions
Service Managers may contribute to the assessment of referrals and help determine whether a proposed placement can safely and appropriately meet an individual’s needs.
You should consider compatibility with existing residents, staffing requirements, environmental factors, identified risks, support hours and any specialist arrangements required.
Where a placement is agreed, you will help ensure that transition planning is structured and that staff have sufficient information, training and preparation before the person moves in.
Quality assurance and continuous improvement
You will be expected to monitor the service rather than waiting for problems to be identified externally.
This includes reviewing records, support-plan quality, risk assessments, incidents, safeguarding concerns, medication processes, training compliance, environmental standards and other areas relevant to service quality.
Where improvement is required, you should develop clear actions, allocate responsibility, set timescales and confirm that changes have actually been implemented.
What we are looking for
Qualifications and knowledge
A relevant management, health and social care or mental health qualification at Level 4 or above would be desirable, together with substantial relevant management experience.
You should have a good working understanding of legislation and frameworks relevant to supported living and the people we support, including safeguarding, mental health, mental capacity, equality, housing and information governance.
Knowledge of forensic mental health, Section 37/41 pathways, Section 117 aftercare, MAPPA or Positive Behaviour Support would be particularly useful for managers working within services supporting those cohorts.
Why lead a service with Moreways Healthcare?
- Lead specialist supported living services supporting adults with varied and sometimes highly complex needs.
- Work within an organisation focused on independence, recovery, positive risk management and community progression.
- Develop strong working relationships with local authorities, mental health teams and forensic professionals.
- Influence service quality directly rather than operating at a distance from frontline delivery.
- Develop teams and service systems that translate support plans into meaningful everyday outcomes.
- Build experience relevant to broader operational, quality and senior-management progression within health and social care.
What good service management looks like
A well-managed Moreways Healthcare service should feel calm, organised and purposeful. Staff should understand what they are doing and why. Records should reflect actual support. Risks should be understood rather than merely documented. Residents should be involved in decisions about their own lives.
Commissioners and professionals should receive accurate information and have confidence that agreed actions will be followed through. Staff should know that strong performance is recognised and poor practice will be addressed.
Most importantly, the people living in the service should be able to demonstrate meaningful progress towards the outcomes that matter to them.
If you are an experienced operational leader who combines strong standards with person-centred practice, professional judgement and a commitment to helping people progress, we would welcome your application to join Moreways Healthcare as a Service Manager.
