Reviews Policy

Families use CareHomeGuide to make one of the hardest decisions they will ever make. A review is only worth reading if it is real, so this page sets out exactly how reviews work on this site, who can leave one, what we check before anything is published, and how a care home can challenge a review it believes is unfair or untrue.

Where reviews come from

There are two kinds of review on CareHomeGuide and they are labelled differently, because they are not the same thing.

• Family reviews. Written by someone with direct experience of the home, usually a relative of a resident. These are submitted through the review form on a care home listing. The reviewer confirms their email address before the review goes anywhere.
• Testimonials supplied by the home. Some care homes provide testimonials when they set up their listing. These are shown as "Supplied by the home" and are not independently checked by us. They never carry a verified label.

Who can leave a review

You can leave a review if:

• You, or someone close to you, has had direct experience of the care home as a resident
• You are writing about your own genuine experience
• You have no financial or personal connection to the care home, its owner or a competing home
• You have not been offered anything in return for the review

We do not accept reviews written by care home staff, owners, agencies acting for them, or anyone acting on behalf of a competitor. We do not accept reviews based on a phone call, a website or hearsay.

Every review is checked before it is published

Nothing appears on the site automatically. Every review goes through:

1. Email confirmation. We email the address given on the form. The review does not reach us until the reviewer clicks the link. Links expire after 24 hours.
2. Human moderation. A member of our team reads every review in full before deciding whether to publish it. There is no automatic approval and no automatic publishing.
3. Publication or rejection. If we publish, the review appears on the care home listing. If we do not, the reason is recorded on our system.

We also record technical information at the point of submission, including the IP address and browser, and we allow only one review per email address per care home. This is to detect coordinated or repeated fake reviews.

What we will not publish

• Reviews we believe are not from a genuine first-hand experience
• Reviews naming individual staff members or residents, or including anything that would identify a resident without their consent
• Allegations we cannot reasonably publish, including accusations of criminal conduct
• Abusive, discriminatory or threatening content
• Marketing, links or content promoting another business
• Anything that is clearly about a different care home, or about a service we do not cover

Editing is limited to obvious spelling and formatting. We do not rewrite reviews, and we do not remove criticism because a care home would prefer it was not there. A critical review that is genuine and fairly expressed will be published.

We never offer anything in return for a review

We do not pay for reviews, we do not offer prize draws, vouchers, discounts or any other incentive, and we do not accept reviews from anyone who has been offered an incentive by a care home. Care homes cannot pay us to publish a review, to remove one, or to change the order reviews appear in.

Care homes on a paid listing get the review form on their listing page. They do not get any influence over what is written, whether it is published, or how long it stays up.

Concerns about someone's safety

A review is not the right route for an urgent concern. If you are worried about someone's immediate safety, contact the care home's local council safeguarding team, or the Care Quality Commission on 03000 616161. In an emergency, call 999. If a review sent to us describes a risk of harm, we may pass it to the relevant authority.

If you are a care home and you want to dispute a review

Email hello@carehomeguide.uk with the name of your home, the review you are referring to, and why you believe it should not stand. Tell us if you believe the reviewer has no genuine experience of your home, if the review contains a factual error, or if it identifies a resident or member of staff.

We aim to respond within five working days. We will look at what we hold, including the submission record for that review, and we will tell you what we decide. Where a review makes a serious allegation and the reviewer cannot be reached, we may unpublish it while we look into it. We will not tell you the reviewer's identity or email address.

We will remove a review where we conclude it is not genuine, where it breaches this policy, or where we are required to. A review that is simply unwelcome will not be removed.

If you left a review and want it removed

Email hello@carehomeguide.uk from the address you used to leave it and we will take it down. You do not need to give a reason.

How we keep this working

We review this policy and how well the process is working at least once a year, and sooner if we see a pattern we are not catching. That includes looking at the reviews we rejected and why, any disputes raised by care homes, and whether our checks are still proportionate to the number of reviews we handle.

Your data

Your email address is used to confirm your review is genuine and to contact you about it if we need to. It is never published and never passed to the care home. Your full name is stored on our system but only your first name and the initial of your surname is published. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle personal data and your rights over it.

Contact

Questions about this policy can go to hello@carehomeguide.uk.