Care home software in the UK: what it must do for CQC, staff and families

What does care home software do?

• Care plans and assessments: Build each resident's plan, with risks, needs and preferences, and review it on a schedule.
• Care notes at the point of care: Staff tap or speak what they did on a handheld device. The note is saved with the time and the staff member's name.
• eMAR: An electronic medicine administration record. It shows what each resident needs and when, and it flags missed or late doses.
• Charts and alerts: Track fluids, food, weight, falls and repositioning, and alert a senior when something is off.
• Staff and rotas: Plan shifts, track training and keep staff records.
• Family updates: Share approved updates, photos and messages with relatives.
• Audits and reports: Pull evidence for managers, commissioners and inspectors.

Domiciliary care software adds rostering for travelling carers, visit check-ins at the client's home and invoicing by the hour.

What records does CQC expect?

CQC regulates care in England under the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014. Under regulation 17(2)(c), on good governance, a provider must "maintain securely an accurate, complete and contemporaneous record in respect of each service user". That record must include the care and treatment given and the decisions taken about it. Contemporaneous means written at the time, or as close to it as possible.

Regulation 17(2)(d) adds secure records about your staff and about how you manage the service. Digital records make this rule easier to meet, because a note made on a device at the bedside carries a time stamp and a name. When you test a system, check that it records who wrote each entry, when, and every later change.

What is MODS, and does it apply to you?

MODS is the Minimum Operational Data Standard. NHS England published it on 15 April 2024, with effect from 1 April 2024. It sets a shared baseline for how adult social care providers record direct care data.

The standard says it applies to all CQC-registered adult social care providers and to the suppliers of their digital social care record systems. For suppliers on the NHS England assured list, following MODS is also a contract requirement.

Your supplier does most of this work, so ask each vendor to confirm in writing that its system meets MODS.

What is the NHS Assured Solutions List?

The NHS keeps a list of digital social care record systems that have passed an independent check against national standards. Those standards cover clinical safety, information governance, cyber security, data quality, links to other systems and product features.

CareDocs, for example, announced in July 2026 that its system had joined the list. Its release says the final checks covered GP Connect links to GP systems, the DCB0129 clinical risk standard and MODS. CareDocs adds that the listing gives evidence of good governance at a CQC inspection. An assured system saves you checking those standards yourself, so ask each vendor whether it is on the current list.

What data and security rules apply?

UK GDPR and health data

Under UK GDPR, the ICO treats data about a person's physical or mental health as special category data. You need an Article 9 condition to process it, as well as a normal lawful basis.

For your software, each staff member needs their own login. Each role should see only what it needs, and you must remove access the day someone leaves. Ask the vendor where the data is stored and get a written data processing agreement.

The Data Security and Protection Toolkit

The DSPT is a free yearly self-assessment that shows how well you protect information. NHS England says it applies to social care providers that deliver care through the NHS Standard Contract. Any organisation with access to NHS patient data and systems must use it too. Digital Social Care strongly advises every other adult social care service in England to complete it. You also need it before you can join projects that open GP records or shared care records.

Your software vendor's security helps you answer many DSPT questions. Ask for its certificates, such as ISO 27001 or Cyber Essentials Plus.

Which care home software do UK providers use?

Prices below come from each vendor's own page as of October 2026.

Person Centred Software

Person Centred Software sells PCS Care for care records and PCS eMAR for medicines, along with rota, training, family and reporting tools. It says it works with more than 8,900 UK care homes and organisations, and its site shows the NHS Assured Supplier List logo. It does not publish prices, so you book a demo.

Log my Care

Log my Care has a free Starter plan for providers with fewer than 10 service users. Pro, for larger services, and Outstanding, for groups and multi-site providers, are priced by quote based on active service users. eMAR, rostering and a family app are paid add-ons.

Birdie

Birdie is built for homecare and domiciliary agencies. Pricing starts from £200 a month excluding VAT, billed monthly, and it is based on the hours of care you schedule. Every plan includes digital care plans, rostering, eMAR, invoicing and payroll, and carer and family apps. Its AI care plan tool, SmartPlans, gives 3 free recording hours and then costs £3.50 a recording hour on pay as you go.

How do they compare?

Product	Price (Oct 2026)	Built for	Notes
Person Centred Software	By quote	Care homes	Care records, eMAR and family tools
Log my Care	Free under 10 service users, then by quote	Care homes and supported living	eMAR and rostering are add-ons
Birdie	From £200 a month ex VAT	Homecare agencies	Priced on scheduled care hours
CareDocs	By quote	Care homes	On the NHS Assured Solutions List

What should you ask in a demo?

• Assured status: Is the product on the current NHS Assured Solutions List, and does it meet MODS?
• Night shift test: Ask two carers to record a full round of care on the device. If it is slow, notes will go back to paper.
• Medicines: Ask how eMAR works with your pharmacy and how it shows a missed dose.
• Inspection evidence: Ask the vendor to pull one resident's full record for the last month, as you would for an inspector.
• Offline use: Ask what happens when the Wi-Fi drops in part of the building.
• Leaving: Ask how you export every record if you change system.

How can AI help a care home or homecare agency?

• Care notes and plans from voice: A carer speaks a short summary, and AI turns it into a structured note for them to check. Birdie's SmartPlans drafts care plans from recorded assessments.
• Early warnings: AI reviews charts across a week and flags patterns, such as falling fluid intake or more night-time falls, for a nurse or manager to look at.
• Shift handover summaries: At the end of a shift, AI drafts a short handover for each resident from the day's notes.

Keep trained staff in charge of every care decision. AI can draft and flag, but a person must check and sign.

When does custom software make sense for a care provider?

Most care homes and agencies should buy an assured system. The standards are detailed, and the vendors above already meet them. Extra software built around your care record system can help in these cases.

• You run several services: You run care homes, homecare and supported living, and your data sits in three systems.
• Office staff re-type data: Rotas, payroll, training and invoicing live in different tools.
• You want your own family app: You want a client portal in your brand, with updates, visits and invoices in one place.
• Owners need one view: You want occupancy, staffing, agency spend and quality across every site on one screen.

Before any build, ask your care record vendor what data it shares with other tools. My build vs buy guide covers the wider choice, and my AI receptionist guide for the UK covers phone cover for out-of-hours calls.

What mistakes do providers make?

These mistakes are the ones CQC inspectors and NHS assurance reviewers actually flag.

• Treating NHS Assured status as optional. For suppliers on the NHS England assured list, following MODS is a contract requirement, not a nice-to-have. If your current system is not on the list, ask directly what that means for your own compliance position, not just the supplier's.
• Sloppy login and access hygiene. Resident health data is special category data under UK GDPR. Shared logins, or access that is not removed the day someone leaves, are exactly the gaps an ICO investigation looks for after an incident.
• Never testing note-taking on a real night shift. A system that works well in a quiet office demo can be too slow for a carer doing a full round with a weak signal. If it is too slow, notes go back to paper, and your audit trail has a hole in it.

How would Blur Studio approach this for a care provider?

I would spend a day with your managers and one shift of carers before suggesting anything. If an assured system covers your needs, I will tell you to buy it. Where it falls short, I build the extra tool and connect it to your care record system. I treat resident data as special category data from the start. The code and every account are registered to the provider. I'm a one-person studio based in Dubai, and I work with care providers across the UK remotely, before and after launch.