QLine IT has introduced Precinct Care, a care recording and management system for children’s homes, supported accommodation for 16 and 17 year olds, and adult care services.
Precinct Care is in final development. We are booking demonstrations now and taking a small number of pilot homes.
Why we built it
We have supported children’s homes with filtering, secure Wi-Fi and managed phones for more than ten years. Again and again, managers told us their recording system was the part of the job they liked least.
So before designing anything, we gathered what care staff, registered managers, inspectors and care leavers say publicly about the systems in use today. We found 26 recurring problems. They include young people’s files opened on personal phones at home, notes lost when a tablet locks, the same incident written up three times, and records that leave out the young person’s own voice. Why Precinct Care is different lists each problem and what we did about it.
An experienced Responsible Individual, with more than 20 years in children’s homes, has reviewed the design with us. Registered managers are now reviewing it with us.
What Precinct Care does
- Young people’s files open with what a bank worker needs on their first shift: allergies, contact restrictions, missing risk, triggers and what helps.
- Daily logs can be spoken instead of typed, read back aloud and spell-checked. They work for staff with dyslexia and keep working when the internet drops.
- Reg 44 visits get a ready-made visit pack and a one-day, read-only pass on the home’s tablet.
- Ofsted inspectors can be given read-only access for the inspection days, with their name on every page.
- Missing person profiles are kept ready in the Philomena Protocol format police forces use.
- Restraint records start the regulation 35 clocks on their own.
- Clocking in is checked by location, the home’s own Wi-Fi and the worker’s face, and approved hours go straight to payroll.
- Training chases itself: missing or expiring courses are assigned automatically.
- Young people get their own app, with their plans in plain words, goals and a memory book they keep.
Records that stay in the home
Our biggest concern was that most systems let staff sign in from any phone or computer. Precinct Care opens only on devices the provider owns and has registered. Staff sign with their face, not a password, and every record opened is logged. Read more about security.
Not just children’s homes
The rules change with the service. Precinct Care follows the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015, the Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023, CQC and the Mental Capacity Act for adult care and supported living, and the Care Inspectorate and CIW rules in Scotland and Wales.
See it for yourself
If you run a children’s home, supported accommodation or an adult care service and would like a demonstration, or to be one of our pilot homes, get in touch or call 0330 1700 092.
