The phone call you don’t want: your relative says nobody came on Wednesday morning, the agency’s invoice says someone did, and now you’re trying to work out who’s right. Or the council is paying for the care and is asking you to evidence missed visits before they’ll adjust the bill. Either way, you need records — and the question becomes which records, who has them, and what will actually be accepted.
This is the practical UK answer.
What “evidence” means in a home-care dispute
Three things count as evidence in roughly this order of weight:
- The agency’s own visit log — timestamped check-ins and check-outs from whatever system the agency uses. This is the strongest evidence because it was generated at the time of the event, by the carer themselves.
- The carer’s daily notes — the handwritten record in the home, signed and timed. Less reliable than electronic logs (it can be filled in after the fact) but harder to dispute when corroborated by other records.
- Third-party records — anything generated outside the agency: doorbell footage, a GP visit on the same day, a phone call to your relative at a specific time, the council’s own commissioning records.
Councils and the Ombudsman will weigh all three. Your job, as the family raising the dispute, is to gather as many of them as you can.
Step 1 — Ask the agency for the visit log
Your first action is always the same: written request to the agency’s registered manager for the visit log covering the disputed period. An email is fine. Be specific:
“Please send me the visit log for [Mum’s full name, date of birth] for the period [start date] to [end date]. I’d like the carer’s recorded arrival and departure times for each scheduled visit, with the carer’s name.”
CQC-registered providers are required to keep accurate visit records. Most use one of the standard agency platforms — Birdie, CareLineLive, Person Centred Software, CarePlanner, PASSsystem, or similar — and can email a CSV or PDF the same day. A request that takes more than three working days, or that comes back without specific times, is itself a signal worth noting.
Keep the email. It becomes evidence in its own right of when you raised the concern and what the agency said.
Step 2 — Cross-reference against the daily notes
Carers leave a written record in the home — usually a notebook or care plan folder. Ask your relative to keep it safe, or visit and photograph each page.
Cross-reference the visit log against the notes. Things to look for:
- Visits the agency claims that don’t appear in the notebook
- Visits in the notebook the agency doesn’t have in their log
- Times that don’t roughly match between the two
- Carer signatures that don’t match the named carer on the agency’s log
Disagreements between the two are the strongest pattern you can document. The agency will have to explain them.
Step 3 — Gather third-party evidence
Anything from outside the agency strengthens your position:
- Video doorbell footage with timestamps showing arrival and departure (Ring, Nest, etc.). Most cloud-saved doorbell systems store footage for 30+ days and let you download clips.
- Your own phone records — if you spoke to your relative at a specific time and they reported no carer had been, that’s a contemporaneous note. Save the call log.
- GP, district nurse, or community pharmacy visits on the same day — these professionals keep their own records and would notice a missed care visit.
- Meal-on-wheels or council day-centre attendance records — separate records that can corroborate your relative’s whereabouts.
- Text messages from your relative (“nobody came again this morning”) sent on the day of the dispute. Screenshots are accepted.
You’re not trying to prove the negative — that a visit didn’t happen. You’re building a picture that contradicts the agency’s claim it did.
What councils actually accept
If the council commissioned the care, they’ll investigate disputed visits as part of their commissioning oversight. What they’ll accept varies by council but typically includes:
- The agency’s electronic visit log (they’ll request this directly from the agency)
- Daily notes from the home
- Statements from family members
- Statements from your relative if they’re able to give one
- Doorbell or camera evidence
- Cross-referenced records from other services (NHS, council day-services)
The council’s commissioning team will weigh these against the agency’s records. If there’s a genuine contradiction, the council can usually adjust the bill and ask the agency to investigate the missed visits internally.
Two practical points: councils generally won’t accept “Mum says the carer didn’t come” alone — they need it corroborated. And they won’t act on disputes raised months later — the realistic window is about six weeks from the disputed visit.
What the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman accepts
If the council won’t act, you can escalate to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. They investigate complaints about council-commissioned care.
The Ombudsman will look at:
- All the evidence you provided to the council
- What the council did in response
- Whether the council followed its own procedures
- The agency’s records (they can request these)
Their bar for evidence is similar to the council’s but with stricter procedural requirements — you need to have exhausted the council’s own complaint procedure before they’ll take the case.
When records are missing or contradictory
Sometimes the agency simply can’t produce a visit log, or what they produce is obviously incomplete. That’s a stronger signal than missing visits — it suggests the agency isn’t keeping the records CQC requires.
In that situation:
- Raise this specifically with the registered manager in writing — “you weren’t able to produce a contemporaneous record of visits between X and Y, which is concerning.”
- Tell the council if they commissioned the care. Missing records are a commissioning issue, not just a billing one.
- Tell CQC. They won’t investigate your individual complaint, but they can use it as intelligence at the next inspection. The form is Give feedback on care.
CQC’s regulations (specifically Regulation 17 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014) require providers to maintain accurate records. Inability to produce them on request is itself a regulatory concern.
A practical timeline for raising a dispute
If you’re starting from scratch this week, a realistic timeline:
- Day 1 — request the visit log in writing.
- Day 3 — log received (or chase). Cross-reference against daily notes and your own records.
- Day 5 — first written response to the agency with specific discrepancies listed. Ask for written reply within 14 days.
- Day 19 — review agency response. If satisfactory, close. If not, raise formal complaint via the agency’s published complaints procedure.
- Day 60 — if still unresolved, escalate to council (if commissioned) or Ombudsman.
A persistent paper trail at each step is the strongest evidence of all. Keep everything.
This guide pairs with our piece on how to know if your home carer actually attended a visit, which is a useful read before any dispute escalates.
Corrections or questions to john@myfamilycare.app.