Guide

Care minutes explained

If you are comparing homes, this is one number worth five minutes of your time. Care minutes are the clearest thing published about a home and the most easily misread. They are not a rating and not an opinion — they are a count of time, measured against a target set for that particular home.

What the number counts

A care minute is a minute of direct care delivered to a resident by a registered nurse, an enrolled nurse or a personal care worker. Direct care means hands-on: helping someone wash, dress, eat, move, take medication. It does not count cleaning, catering, laundry, gardening or administration, even though all of those matter to how a place feels to live in.

The figure published is an average per resident per day across a quarter, and it is reported by the home.

Why every home's target is different

The requirement is built on a sector-wide average of 215 minutes a day, including 44 minutes from a registered nurse. That average is often quoted as though it were every home's target. It isn't.

Each home's target is calculated from how much care its own residents need, using the government's assessment of the resident mix. A home caring for people with high needs gets a higher target than one whose residents are largely independent. That is why comparing one home's raw minutes against another's tells you less than comparing each home against its own target.

The national picture

From the August 2026 extract, across the 2,505 homes that publish both figures:

Most homes are at or above their target, and the median home is a few minutes ahead. A shortfall is common enough that finding one is not a reason on its own to rule a home out — but it is a specific, answerable thing to raise on a visit.

The registered nurse minutes matter separately

Within the total, a set number of minutes has to come from a registered nurse. Registered nurses do the things nobody else can: assessing a change in someone's condition, managing complex medication, wound care, and the judgement call about whether to send someone to hospital at two in the morning.

A home can meet its total while falling short on the registered nurse component, which is why both numbers appear separately on every home page here.

What the number doesn't tell you

• How the time is distributed. An average across a quarter says nothing about whether the hard hours — early morning, evening, overnight — are covered.
• Who delivered it. Continuity isn't counted. The same total can be delivered by staff who know a resident well or by a different agency worker each shift.
• How good the care was. Minutes are a measure of quantity.
• It is self-reported. Homes report their own figures, subject to audit.

Using it when you compare homes

Three questions the number answers well:

1. Is this home meeting the target set for its own residents?
2. How large is the gap, in either direction?
3. Is it short specifically on registered nurse time?

Every home page on this site shows delivered minutes, the target, and the gap between them, for both total care and registered nurse care. Compare two homes to see them side by side, or browse by area.