Review Submission Guidelines

Recent experience of care provision

To ensure reviews are relevant and current, all reviews must be based on first-hand (in person) experience of care provision to a resident/service user within the past 12 months.

Who can submit Reviews?

Reviews can only be submitted by:

• Residents/service users (excluding potential residents/service users)

• Family/friends of residents/service users

• Legal representatives of residents/service users (guardians, power of attorneys, solicitors, IMCAs)

• Regular volunteers

Regular Volunteers

carehome.co.uk considers a Regular Volunteer to be someone who has regularly visited residents in the care home (on 3 or more occasions in the last 12 months) on an unpaid basis and has no other professional connection to the home.

Examples of valid Regular Volunteer experience:

• A befriender who regularly visits a resident in the home

• A pet therapy volunteer who has visited the home at least 3 times and has spent time with individual residents during each visit

• A representative from a religious group who regularly visits to conduct services or meet with individual residents

• A helper who assists with the completion of activities with residents in the home on a regular basis

Examples of invalid Regular Volunteer experience:

• A person who has visited on a one-off occasion to help staff at an event

• A person who tends the garden at the home on an unpaid basis, but doesn't interact with residents during their visits

• A member of staff (of the home or its wider organisation, or agency staff) who volunteers in their own time

• A student or a person on work experience

People under 16 should get permission from a parent or guardian before posting on our site.

Who can't submit Reviews?

Reviews are not accepted from the following connections, even if they are family/friend of a resident/service user:

• Members of staff, ex-members of staff (within the last 12 months), owners, students, and work experience participants (excluding regular volunteers)

• Immediate family of anyone in the above group

• Anyone with a professional connection to the care provider or resident/service user e.g. entertainer/hairdresser/doctor/nurse/carer/therapist/case managers/social workers etc. (legal representatives of residents/service users are permitted)

• Anyone who is an owner or member of staff of a direct competitor

For clarity, these restrictions apply not only to the care provider but where applicable to its wider organisation.

Asking for reviews and incentives

If care providers are asking for reviews, they should do so in a fair, neutral and unbiased way.

Care providers are not permitted to:

• Offer incentives to write a review (including discounts, free prize draws or any special treatment)

• Selectively solicit reviews

• Pressure residents or their friends/family to submit a positive review or remove a negative review

• Prohibit or discourage residents or their family/friends from posting a negative review

• Ask residents or their friends / family to remove their reviews in return for a discount or incentive

Submitting reviews directly

Reviews are not accepted if they are submitted on behalf of a resident or friend / family of a resident. This includes copying in-house comment cards, letters or reviews from other websites and submitting them as reviews.

Assistance for reviews

For reviews submitted online on carehome.co.uk, assistance is not permitted. All online reviews must be submitted directly by the named reviewer.

For reviews submitted on Review Cards, assistance can be given to residents/service users by individuals with a valid connection e.g. by their family/friends, their legal representatives or regular volunteers but NOT by staff members. The person assisting must provide their name, connection and contact details. Residents/service users must sign the review and be willing and able to give all of the information for the review. The connection is published next to the review which clearly states assistance has been given.

Contact Details

For reviews submitted online through carehome.co.uk, we require the reviewer’s personal email address and telephone number. The email address of the care home, or a member of staff at the care home, will not be permitted. Reviewers who do not have their own personal email address should submit their review on a Review Card.

For reviews submitted on Review Cards, we require either the reviewer’s personal email address or telephone number. Permanent residents may provide the telephone number of the care home however respite residents must provide either a personal email address or telephone number so that we may contact them should they have left the home at the time their review is processed.

Anonymous Reviews

Reviews cannot be submitted anonymously through carehome.co.uk. We require the full name and telephone/email of the reviewer, and we may share the full name with the care provider. We do this so that we can properly authenticate reviews and so that care providers can address any feedback/issues.

When a review is published, the website displays the first name and initial of the surname, or the reviewer can choose only their initials. Our policy is not to include the reviewer’s full surname.

Multiple Reviews from the same Reviewer

When a Review is submitted by someone who has previously submitted a Review, the latest Review replaces the older Review. The older Review is no longer published and does not count towards the Review Score.

Multiple Reviews from different Reviewers about the same resident/service user experience

If we receive multiple reviews from different reviewers relating to the same resident/service user experience within a similar timescale they may be subject to further moderation to ensure a fair picture for the care seeker.

Content Standards

Reviews must:

• Be relevant (about the care/service provided)

• Be first-hand personal experiences (no second-hand information, rumours or quotations from other sources)

• Be based on an experience of the provision of care services (ie if the care services are cancelled before they have been provided, then the review will not be compliant)

• Be submitted within 12 months - the resident/service user must have received care from the care provider during the 12 months prior to submitting the review

• Be a maximum of 1,000 characters (with spaces) in length, which is approximately 150 words

• Be written in English and comply with acceptable standards of spelling and grammar

• Be complete ie all Review fields must be completed

• Comply with the laws applicable in England and Wales and in any country from which it is posted

Reviews must not:

• Be defamatory or capable of bearing a defamatory meaning (for example specific or generalised allegations of abuse or material negligence) or other serious accusations of criminal actions or other wrongdoing (for example fraud, theft, or other financial misconduct, or, of physical or sexual misconduct in any form) without that setting any limit on the interpretation of the general term defamatory

• Be obscene, offensive, hateful, threatening, harassing or unlawful

• Constitute discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or, age or promote such discrimination by others

• Contain abusive language

• Disclose the name, address, telephone, mobile or fax number, e-mail address or any other personal data in respect of any individual

• Contain any reference to the Review Score of the organisation/business being reviewed

• Contain references to other specific Reviews

• Stereotype sections of society

• Name any organisations/businesses other than the organisation/business that is being reviewed

• Infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person

• Breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence

• Be in contempt of court or breach of a court order

• Be made in an attempt to blackmail any person

• Be made with a view to gain for the person submitting the content/comment or for another, or with the intent to cause loss to another, in exchange for offering to remove a ‘negative’ review or post a ‘positive’ review

• Impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person

• Give the impression that the Review emanates from us if this is not the case

• Advocate, promote, incite any third party to commit, or assist any unlawful or criminal act

• Contain a statement which you know or believe, or have reasonable grounds for believing, that members of the public to whom the statement is, or is to be, published are likely to understand as a direct or indirect encouragement or other inducement to the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism

• Contain any advertising or promote any services or web links to other sites

• Our general approach is that we take a neutral stance in factual disputes between care providers and reviewers. If a care provider disagrees with the reviewer over the experience, we recommend that the care provider writes a reply to the review sharing their version of events so that website users can see both perspectives.