Care Centre is a people management platform for care homes and care home groups, in which the staff team is the product rather than one module. Care Vision is a care home management system from Care Vision CMS (UK) Ltd in Bromley, south-east London, sold as modules arranged around the resident record: its FAQ lists Care, HR, Rota, Medication (eMAR), Billing, Nutrition, Housekeeping, Resident Funds, Visitors Book and Clocking-in Machine, and states that clients can start with one module and activate others.
The main difference is therefore one of scope. Care Vision provides a care record and administration suite within which the workforce is one module. Care Centre brings rota planning, time and attendance, leave, timesheets and payroll, HR onboarding and compliance, policies, communication, recognition, surveys and maintenance together through a single staff record and staff app. Both are designed for residential care, so the choice is largely one of emphasis.
A people platform and a care record suite
Care Centre begins from the staff team, connecting rota planning, attendance, leave, payroll information, HR and compliance, policies, communication, recognition, surveys and maintenance through one employee record and one staff app.
Care Vision begins from the resident record, with care planning, eMAR, daily notes and observations at the centre and modules for HR, rota, clocking-in, audits, maintenance and the administration of the home alongside them.
For organisations wanting the care record and the administration of the home in one system, Care Vision takes the broader approach; Care Centre is more specifically structured around the workforce.
Rota planning designed around care roles
Care home rotas need to account for roles, skills, contracted hours, availability, leave and staffing budgets, not only the number of people on a shift.
Care Centre plans rotas around care roles such as nurses, senior carers and carers, so the skill mix and contracted hours are visible as each shift is built, with holidays, days off, availability and preferences taken into account. Bank and agency workers sit within the same rota, and Working Time requirements can be incorporated into rota rules, including individual opt-outs.
Care Vision arranges its rota by department or floor, with coloured shifts, multiple pay rates, clash notifications, Bradford factor reporting and ROTA targets which “set parameters to identify if you are short on a shift”. Its attendance report gives a live update of people who have not reported to work or who have come late.
Care Vision therefore organises the rota by area of the home and identifies shortfalls; Care Centre plans by care role against allocated hours.
One company, multiple homes
Group-wide standards need to be maintained while allowing individual homes to operate according to their own staffing requirements.
Care Centre has been structured around this model: role levels, leave limits, staffing budgets, pay rates, clock-in rules, shift rules, onboarding requirements and maintenance approvers are set at company level and configured for each home. Employees working across several homes use one staff record and login, and managers move between homes in the same system.
Care Vision’s groups page states that group managers can see what is happening at each of their care homes at a glance and compare records across different sites, and its FAQ describes a directors’ dashboard for senior management. Care Centre does not currently provide an equivalent group-level dashboard; its operational views are one home at a time. Based on its published documentation, Care Vision does not describe company-level settings configured per home, one staff record across homes, or home-switching in a single login.
Rota planning & budgets
Both platforms provide rota planning, but they take different approaches to budgeting.
Care Centre builds staffing budgets into the rota using hours per role, per day, per home, and homes can restrict the rota to the agreed budget, so that a shift taking a role beyond its allocated hours is prevented rather than flagged. A dropped shift returns those hours to the budget and the resulting open shift can be offered to suitable staff and approved, while published shifts are sent to employees through the app for confirmation.
Based on its published documentation, Care Vision does not describe an hours budget by care role, a limit that prevents a shift being added, contracted hours accumulating during planning, or an open shift claimed by staff and approved by a manager.
Time & attendance, timesheets & payroll
Both platforms record attendance and prepare staff hours for payroll, using different methods at the point of clocking.
Care Centre allows staff to clock in with a PIN at a shared tablet or from their own phone within a defined radius, with a photograph where required; the same tablet can sign visitors in and ask a pulse question at the end of a shift. Unrostered clock-ins are permitted, blocked or held for approval, managers are alerted to a no-show or a missed clock-out, and additional time is approved before becoming overtime. Clocking feeds a status-coded timesheet, and payroll periods from weekly to 4-4-5 can be locked and exported, including a Moneysoft-ready format. These functions are included within CareRota.
Care Vision clocks staff on a facial-recognition machine, which it describes as removing the fobs and “buddy punching” of older systems, linking with the rota to identify lateness and absence, tracking break times and feeding attendance, sickness and lateness into HR; it links with payroll packages including export, without naming them. Based on its published documentation, it does not describe phone clocking within a radius, a setting for unrostered clock-ins, a no-show or missed clock-out alert, or additional time held for approval.
Leave management
Both systems allow employees to request leave and managers to control availability.
Care Centre shows employees their remaining entitlement in days or hours and allows requests from their phone; once approved, leave updates the rota, the timesheet and payroll information. Homes can limit how many people within particular roles are away at the same time, with those limits set across a group and adjusted for individual homes.
Care Vision provides an annual leave calculator which works out entitlement, leave taken and leave remaining automatically and carries remaining leave into the following year, with requests from its staff app going to the administration office. Based on its published documentation, it does not describe role-based leave limits or leave feeding into payroll information.
HR & compliance
This is one of the areas where the two platforms differ most in approach.
Care Centre includes HR onboarding and compliance within the wider platform. Standard onboarding covers DBS checks, right-to-work documentation, references and training certificates, and organisations can configure their own steps, fields and expiry rules; new employees complete it from their phone, while managers approve items, return incomplete information and track progress on a compliance matrix for each home. Documents with expiry dates generate advance reminders at a lead time set by the home, and policies are version-controlled with acknowledgement records.
Care Vision holds HR records in one database, with Document Expiry Management flagging identification, visas, DBS checks and nursing registration at 90 days, 28 days or as the organisation requires, a training matrix, supervision and appraisals, policies with read receipts, and an Audit Management module whose custom templates automatically assign actions and areas of responsibility. Care Centre does not currently provide equivalent supervision and appraisal workflows; it records training certificates with their expiry dates. Based on its published documentation, Care Vision does not describe onboarding completed on the employee’s phone with field-by-field approval, or a compliance matrix per home.
Staff communication & recognition
Care Centre includes internal communication and employee recognition within the same staff app used for rotas and clocking. Colleagues can be recognised against organisational values, with monthly champions; homes can publish news, events, polls and priority messages, including posts requiring acknowledgement; and one-to-one and group chat provides a workplace alternative to personal messaging services such as WhatsApp. Included for every employee, the app also carries shifts and confirmations, swaps, drops and open shifts, clock-in, leave balances, hours and pay, onboarding and policies.
Posts can include photographs, uploaded video and YouTube or Vimeo links, so a home can share an event, a celebration or news from the home with the whole team. Recognition can be given as a thank-you, a star, congratulations, a work-anniversary message or employee of the month, and chat messages can include photographs.
Care Vision provides a Message Centre for messages sent in bulk to departments or individuals, with attachments, read receipts and a priority message that appears on screen, plus memos and minutes. It publishes a Care Vision Staff App on both app stores, alongside a family app; its listings describe the monthly rota with notification of changes, leave entitlement and requests, days off and duty swaps, the Message Centre, acknowledging documents and policies, and supervision items. Based on that information, the app does not describe clocking in, recognition, a company feed with polls, internal chat, or onboarding by a new starter.
Staff, resident & family surveys
Care Centre includes anonymous staff surveys alongside resident and family surveys, distributed by QR poster or scheduled invitation. Results can be analysed using AI to identify sentiment and themes, differences between leadership and frontline respondents, and comparison with the previous year in the same home; findings can then be developed into action plans, including a You said · We said · We did format. Homes can also use short pulse questions at clock-out between larger surveys.
Care Vision provides a Feedback and Survey Module in which, in its words, “any party can give feedback to another party”, with surveys stored and compared against historical data. Based on its published documentation, it does not describe anonymity, QR or invitation-based distribution, an analysed report, or action planning arising from the results.
Maintenance & compliance
Both platforms extend beyond people management into the operation of the home.
In Care Centre, maintenance requests can be submitted with photographs, and scheduled checks organised by room or asset, with a photograph on a failed check and manager sign-off. The platform includes an asset register and holds fire, gas, electrical, PAT, LOLER and legionella records with their expiry dates, alongside a Regulation 12 and 15 view.
Care Vision’s Maintenance module allows issues to be reported, tasks scheduled daily, weekly or monthly, work assigned and prioritised, a digital record kept and summary reports compiled. Based on its published documentation, it does not describe photographs on requests, an asset register, or statutory certificates held with their expiry dates.
Care records
Care Vision provides care planning and eMAR within the product, with pharmacy integration, GP Connect, medication audits and clinical charts, alongside daily notes and observations; its suite also covers the administration of the home, from resident billing, resident funds and accounts to housekeeping, nutrition and the kitchen, nurse call and the visitors book.
Care Centre does not provide an eMAR and does not currently provide care-record integrations; its care planning is a separate product, not included within the £10 per bed People Management Platform, and it does not provide those office functions. For organisations looking to hold the care record, the office and the workforce in one system, Care Vision provides that in a single suite.
AI
Care Centre uses AI selectively within administrative and communication tasks rather than operational decisions: writing recognition messages, creating surveys, analysing survey responses and importing staff information from a spreadsheet or a photograph of a staff list. According to Care Centre, personal information is redacted before relevant import processing and customer data is not used to train the underlying AI model. AI is deliberately not used for decisions about rotas, clocking, payroll or leave, where configured rules remain in control, and AI credits are included in the subscription at £25 per month with CareRota or CareHR and £10 with CareSurvey.
Care Vision presents its homepage under the heading “Care Vision AI” and describes AI care plans, AI daily notes, predictive care insights, and real-time alerts and suggestions, applied to the care record. Neither platform applies AI to rota, clocking or payroll decisions.
Pricing
The platforms use different pricing structures. Care Centre is priced per registered bed rather than per employee, and its figures are published. Current pricing is:
- CareRota: £6 per bed per month
- CareHR: £6 per bed per month
- People Management Platform: £10 per bed per month
- Setup: £0
- Contract: monthly rolling with 30 days’ notice
The full platform combines CareRota and CareHR with additional functionality, including CareChat and CareMaintenance. Staffing numbers therefore do not affect the price: a 60-bed home with 80 employees is charged for 60 beds rather than 80 individual users, and adding bank staff does not change the subscription.
Care Vision does not publish figures. Its pricing page offers a flexible solution to fit individual needs, with devices, tablets and the clocking machine for the Rota module supplied, rented or purchased, while its FAQ describes a monthly subscription based on the number of users and modules selected, an initial implementation cost, the subscription commencing 30 days after go-live, and fixed costs over longer contract periods.
For a home activating few modules, a per-user and per-module subscription may suit its requirements; Care Centre’s per-bed model is designed around the higher employee-to-bed ratios typically found in residential care.
Implementation, training & support
Both platforms are cloud-based, and each takes a different approach to bringing a home live.
Care Centre requires no dedicated proprietary hardware: staff use their own phones, and standard Android tablets can be used within homes. It provides initial configuration, staff-data import and live training for managers and employees without a setup fee, with a trial before commitment, a monthly rolling contract, and support from a UK-based team focused on the care sector through in-app chat and email, without tiers. It is in use in homes including Esmere Gardens, Banbury Heights and Shipston Lodge.
Care Vision states that onboarding typically takes four to eight weeks, with an implementation plan, data migration and an initial implementation cost; training is in person, by video call and through tutorial videos, and support runs Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm, with an out-of-hours on-call service.
The choice is between a shorter workforce implementation with no hardware requirement and a longer programme bringing the care record, the office and the workforce across together.
Where Care Centre may be the better fit
Care Centre is likely to suit organisations whose priority is the staff team rather than the care record, particularly where they:
- Want rota budgets based on hours by care role, with the option to prevent shifts beyond the allocated hours
- Want clocking rules that reflect the rota, including control of unrostered clock-ins, no-show alerts and approval of additional time
- Operate multiple care homes and want group-wide settings configured for each home, with one staff record across homes
- Want onboarding completed by new employees on their own phone and evidenced through a compliance matrix for each home
- Want anonymous staff, resident and family surveys, analysis and action planning alongside recognition and communication
- Prefer published pricing based on registered beds rather than employee numbers or activated modules
- Want maintenance, workforce management and compliance through one platform, without hardware or a setup fee
Where Care Vision may be the better fit
Care Vision may be more appropriate where:
- The care record and the workforce are required in one system: it provides care planning and eMAR in-product, with pharmacy integration and GP Connect, while Care Centre has no eMAR, no care-record integrations today and prices care planning separately
- The administration of the home is to sit in the same suite — resident billing, resident funds and accounts, housekeeping, nutrition and the kitchen, nurse call and the visitors book — none of which Care Centre provides
- Supervision and appraisal workflows are required today, alongside a directors’ dashboard across services, where Care Centre’s operational views are one home at a time
- An organisation prefers to begin with a single module around the resident record and activate others over time