Most care providers I speak to have no idea that CQC inspectors look at their website before they visit. It’s part of the pre-inspection process. Your inspector has already formed an impression of your service before they walk through the door.
And even if your website passes the CQC check, there’s a second audience that matters more: families. The daughter searching at midnight for dementia care for her mum. The son comparing three care homes on his phone during a lunch break. They’re making decisions based on what your website tells them, and most care provider websites tell them almost nothing useful.
Here’s what actually needs to be on your site, broken into three categories: what the law requires, what inspectors expect, and what families need to see before they’ll pick up the phone.
The Only Legal Requirement Most Providers Get Wrong
Regulation 20A of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 is specific. If you’re a CQC-registered provider, you must display your CQC performance rating on your website within 21 calendar days of it being published.
That’s not a suggestion. CQC can prosecute without issuing a warning notice first.
The display must be “clear and conspicuous.” Burying a tiny badge at the bottom of your footer doesn’t cut it. The rating needs to be visible without hunting for it.
You also need to link to the CQC website where the full inspection report can be read. Not a PDF you’ve uploaded yourself. A direct link to your report on cqc.org.uk.
Two ways to do this:
- CQC widget (the embed code CQC provides). Simple to add, automatically updates when your rating changes. Limited styling options.
- Custom display. You design your own rating badge and link to the report manually. Looks better, but you’re responsible for updating it within that 21-day window.
If you’ve received “requires improvement” or “inadequate,” you can add context about your improvement plans alongside the rating. You’re not allowed to hide or obscure the rating itself, but nothing stops you from showing what you’re doing about it.
Here’s what catches providers out: this is the only explicit website requirement from CQC itself. Everything else I’m about to cover comes from other legislation or from practical reality. But this one can lead to prosecution, so get it right first.
What Inspectors Check Before They Visit
CQC inspectors review your website as part of their pre-inspection preparation. This is confirmed in BMA guidance and in CQC’s own inspection methodology documents.
Before visiting your service, an inspector will typically:
- Compare your website to your CQC registration. If your website says you provide dementia care but your registration doesn’t include it, that’s a question they’ll ask on arrival.
- Check your rating display. Is it there? Is it current? Is the link to the full report working?
- Look at the general quality of information. Does your website accurately describe what you do? Is the information current?
- Review NHS Choices pages and public feedback. They’re not just looking at your website. They’re checking your reviews too.
Your website is your first impression. If it’s outdated, inaccurate, or missing basic information, the inspector starts with concerns before they’ve even met you.
I’ve spoken to care managers who spent weeks preparing their physical environment for inspection but never looked at what their website said. The inspector did.
Accessibility Is Not Optional
The Equality Act 2010 requires all UK service providers to make reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities. Your website is a service touchpoint. It needs to be accessible.
For public sector bodies, the Public Sector Bodies Accessibility Regulations 2018 go further, requiring WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance and a published accessibility statement. Many care providers fall under this or under NHS contractual obligations that impose similar standards.
Even if you’re a private provider, the Equality Act still applies. And here’s why it matters more for care providers than almost any other industry: your audience includes people with disabilities and their families.
Common accessibility failures I see on care provider websites:
- No alt text on images (screen readers can’t describe your facility to a blind user)
- Poor colour contrast (hard to read for anyone with visual impairment, including many elderly users)
- No keyboard navigation (some users can’t use a mouse)
- Text too small with no way to resize it
- Contact forms that can’t be completed with assistive technology
- PDFs with no text layer (just scanned images, unreadable by screen readers)
The irony is painful. Care providers exist to support vulnerable people, yet their websites often exclude the very people they serve.
You need to publish an accessibility statement explaining what standards your website meets and what you’re doing about any gaps. This isn’t just good practice. It’s a legal expectation.
Privacy and Data Protection
UK GDPR requires every website that collects personal data to have a privacy policy. For care providers, this is particularly important because you’re handling sensitive data: health information, personal care details, family contact information.
Your privacy policy needs to be easily accessible (one click from any page) and written in plain language. Not legalese. Not a template you copied from another industry.
What your privacy policy should cover:
- What personal data you collect through the website (contact forms, enquiry forms, cookies)
- Why you collect it and the legal basis for processing
- How long you keep it
- Who you share it with (including any third-party processors)
- How someone can request access to their data or ask for it to be deleted
- Your data protection officer or contact person
For care providers specifically, you should address how you handle:
- Enquiry data from families asking about care for a relative
- Health information shared during initial assessments via your website
- Staff data if you have online application forms
The ICO can enforce against websites that don’t have adequate privacy policies. Fines are rare for small providers, but complaints from families who feel their data was mishandled are not.
What Families Actually Look For
This is where most care provider websites fail. Not on legal compliance, but on actually helping families make a decision.
I’ve watched people search for care providers. The process is stressful, often emotional, and usually done on a phone. Families are looking for specific things, and if they can’t find them quickly, they move on to the next provider.
What families need from your website:
Trust signals
Your CQC rating, displayed prominently. Not hidden. Not explained away. Just shown clearly with a link to the full report.
Testimonials from real families. Not anonymous quotes. Real names, real experiences (with permission, obviously). Families trust other families far more than they trust your marketing copy.
Photos of your actual staff and facilities. Stock photos of smiling models in medical uniforms don’t build trust. They destroy it. Families can tell the difference.
Service clarity
Specific descriptions of what care you provide. “We offer personalised care in a supportive environment” says absolutely nothing. Every care home says that.
What families want to know: Do you provide dementia care? Respite care? Live-in care? End-of-life care? What does a typical day look like? What activities do you offer? Be specific.
Practical information
Service areas. Pricing transparency, at least a ballpark range so families know if you’re within budget before calling. How the process works from first enquiry to moving in. What to expect.
Contact path
A phone number visible on every page. Not buried in a contact page three clicks deep. A real number someone will answer.
Families researching care are often doing so in stressful moments. Making them hunt for your phone number is a good way to lose them to a competitor who puts theirs in the header.
Speed and mobile
Most care research happens on phones. Often late at night. If your website takes more than a few seconds to load, half your visitors leave before they see anything.
The Website Failures That Hurt Most
Not all website problems are equal. Here are the ones I see most often on care provider websites, ranked by how much damage they do.
1. Missing or buried CQC rating. Legal risk and an immediate trust killer. If families can’t find your rating, they assume you’re hiding something. If CQC can’t find it, you’re facing prosecution.
2. No mobile-friendly design. The majority of your visitors are on phones. If your site doesn’t work on mobile, you’re invisible to most of your potential families.
3. Generic copy that says nothing. “Compassionate care in a warm and welcoming environment.” Every care home in Britain uses this sentence. It tells families nothing about what makes your service different or what specific care you actually provide.
4. No contact number on every page. If someone has to navigate to find your phone number, you’ve already lost some of them. The number should be in your header or at the top of every page.
5. Outdated information. Staff members who left two years ago still listed on the team page. Services you no longer provide. Pricing from 2022. Outdated content tells families you don’t pay attention to detail, which is exactly the wrong message for a care provider.
6. No privacy policy. Beyond the GDPR risk, a missing privacy policy signals a lack of professionalism. Families are sharing sensitive information about their relatives. They want to know it’s being handled properly.
7. Poor accessibility. If a partially sighted user can’t navigate your website, you’re excluding potential service users and their families. For a care provider, that’s both a legal and a moral failure.
A Practical Checklist
Here’s what to check on your website today, in order of priority:
- Display your CQC rating with a link to the full report. Clear, conspicuous, current. This is the one that can get you prosecuted.
- Add a privacy policy that covers health data processing. Not a generic template. One that reflects how you actually handle enquiry and service user data.
- Publish an accessibility statement. Even a basic one showing you’re aware of the requirements and working towards compliance.
- Put your phone number on every page. Header or top of page. Visible without scrolling.
- Write specific service descriptions. Name the types of care you provide. Describe what a day looks like. Drop the generic language.
- Add real testimonials from families. With names and permission. Three genuine testimonials beat thirty anonymous quotes.
- Test on a phone. Can someone find your services and call you in under 30 seconds? If not, fix the navigation.
- Update staff information. Remove anyone who’s left. Add current team members. Include real photos.
- Add your service area clearly. Which towns, boroughs, or postcodes do you cover?
- Check page speed. Aim for under 3 seconds on a mobile connection. Google’s PageSpeed Insights is free.
You don’t need to do all of this in a day. But items 1 through 4 are legal obligations. Start there.
Making It Happen
Most care providers I work with know their website needs attention. The problem isn’t awareness. It’s time. Running a care service doesn’t leave much room for website projects.
The legal requirements (rating display, privacy policy, accessibility) can be handled in a few hours with the right guidance. The trust-building elements (testimonials, specific copy, real photos) take longer but make the real difference to enquiry rates.
If you’re a care provider whose website isn’t doing any of this, I build purpose-built websites for care agencies that handle compliance, speed, and trust signals from day one. Learn more about Presence.
Or if you already have a website that needs improving rather than replacing, my web design service covers audits and rebuilds for care providers who need their site to work harder.
Either way, your website is talking to inspectors and families whether you manage it or not. Better to control what it says.
