Do you trust your care agency's visit logs?

[Kikky2]

I'm a physician and wife works in domiciliary care and we regularly hear from families who aren't confident that care visits are happening as scheduled — especially when they live far away and can't check in person.

I know some agencies offer family apps or portals where you can see visit logs. But from what we've seen, those systems are controlled by the agency itself — the data is entered by the agency's own staff, on the agency's own system. If a visit is missed or cut short, the family is relying on the same organisation to honestly report that. It's a bit like asking someone to mark their own homework.

I'm exploring whether families would value something independent — a simple record of visits that you own and control, completely separate from the care agency's systems.

The idea: a QR code you place by the front door or key safe. The carer scans it when they arrive and leave (takes a few seconds on their phone). You get a notification, and you can see a simple log showing when visits happened and how long they lasted. If nobody shows up, you get an alert straightaway — not from the agency, but from your own system.

The agency can't edit it, delay it, or filter what you see. It's your independent record.

I'd really value hearing from anyone here:

• Have you ever doubted whether visits were happening as reported by the agency?
• Would an independent record like this be useful, or does the agency's own portal give you enough confidence?
• What concerns would you have about something like this?

Not selling anything — this doesn't exist yet. Just trying to understand whether it would genuinely help before I invest time building it.

Thanks

What benefits would this have over something like a Ring doorbell?

I guess the alert. I’d certainly be looking into this if it existed, if my dp had visiting carers. But other than the arrival/departure times, and an alert if no one arrived within a certain window, I can’t imagine what such a service could offer than an unscrupulous carer couldn’t circumvent? It’s an interesting idea, though.

Good question. The main difference is that a Ring doorbell records everyone who comes to the door but doesn't know a care visit was supposed to happen. You'd need to manually check footage each day to work out if the carer came, what time, and how long they stayed.

This would match scans against the care schedule automatically and tell you simply: visit happened at 9:03, lasted 42 minutes. Or: visit didn't happen, here's an alert. No footage to review, no guessing.

Also practically a Ring needs WiFi, power at the door, and costs £80-200 plus a subscription. Many elderly parents don't have the setup for that. A printed QR code costs nothing and works off the carer's own phone.

You're right to raise that. There are a few things that would make it hard to game. The scan captures the phone's location, so scanning from a car park instead of the front door would show up. The QR code could also rotate daily so you can't just photograph it once and reuse it. At the extreme, also requiring a quick photo of the entrance as part of the scan makes it very difficult to fake without actually being there.

But honestly, no verification system is cheat-proof, including the ones agencies already use. The bigger deterrent is simply knowing that someone independent is watching. That alone changes behaviour.

If it did exist at around £10/month, is that something you'd consider worth it for the alert and peace of mind alone?

My wife has a carer twice a day. As soon as he or she arrives they have to log in by touching their phone on a chip.in a plastic folder that stays in our house. They also touch it to log out.
This means the company's app shows me exactly what time they arrived and left.

That sounds like a good setup and it's great that your agency provides that visibility. The question I'm exploring is what happens when the system is owned by the agency rather than the family. If a visit is missed, does the app proactively alert you, or would you only notice if you happened to check? And if the agency edited or removed a record, would you know?

The idea behind this would be a record that sits completely outside the agency's control so you're not relying on them to honestly report their own performance. Might not be needed in your case if you trust the agency, but for families who've had problems it could make a difference.

I'm a social worker and many of the care agencies we work with already operate a system like this - either a chip or a QR code and it logs times on an app that families have access to.

Anyone who doesn't trust that can set up a video doorbell as well if they wish and many do anyway so they can monitor the elderly person's doorway on their behalf.

I'm not sure families would be able to insist an agency used it either - your asking care staff to scan a code they have no idea where that information goes to or how it's being used?

If you wanted an immediate alert it would also rely on the phone signal being good which is not the case in lots of rural areas.

We had cameras in the house. Caught a couple of appalling things. Food delivery person stealing a knife and a carer sitting on his backside whilst my FIL struggled to make breakfast and the previous week had come in the house, FIL not in sitting room so assumed he was in hospital so left house- came back 3 hours later as care company hadn't been able to contact us and said he still wasn't in house yet he was sitting in a high backed chair at the far end of the sitting room.... outrageous really. You can have as many apps as you want but cameras are your only true safety mechanism

I think they would just take a photograph of it and scan remotely based on my carers experiences.
The most frustrating one that stands out was signing in for the breakfast call and finding the partially sighted bed bound resident still asleep cheerfully signed in her next 3 visits for the day.
I couldn’t work out on visiting why no lunchtime call was arriving.
Sackable offence in my book but apparently not.

My poor mother was being taken out by carers straight to the cash point and fleeced.

It was infinitely cheaper to install all sorts of security devices and not hugely time consuming to watch it back to check up.

I think it’s a good idea.

In my area the local trust have set up teams to rationalise care.So much hinges on the entries in that carers book, we''ve lost 2 caring slots x 15mins each day as the team didn't think the slots were being used sufficiently.The carers were often only writing in the bare minimum and it's difficult to keep an eye on if you don't live locally.

I saw this thread a while ago.
I live with my wife and she gets a carer twice a day. In the morning they help her wash and dress and at night help her get undressed and into bed. I am usually at home and help but occasionally I am out as I need a break from constant caring.
I have looked at the carer's logs carefully since reading this thread and they seem reasonably accurate. It is obvious that they often copy and paste a previous entry but as nothing changes that does not matter.
They have to log in and log out be touching their phone to a folder which is in our house.
Overall, I think their logs are accurate and can be relied upon.

I don't see how you could insist on the carer using this system as they are surely only obliged to follow the requirements of the agency.