Know exactly who worked, when, and what it cost.
BrightCare is rota and workforce software built for UK care homes, designed by a care assistant who still works shifts. Every hour worked, every cancelled shift and every agency booking, recorded properly. So payroll is right, agency invoices are checkable, and you have the records you'll need when the 2027 hours rules land.
No credit card. Set up in an afternoon with our Getting Started guide, or have us do it for you.
Who it's for
Built for the people running care homes
Not clinical or resident care software. BrightCare is for operations, scheduling, and administration.
Care home owners and operators
Registered managers and deputy managers
Care coordinators and admin teams
Scheduling and workforce leads
The challenge
Care home operations often involve
BrightCare centralises these workflows into a single platform.
Managing rotas manually across departments
Tracking staff availability, leave, and shift changes
Tracking hours worked and exporting data for payroll processing
Keeping staff informed of schedule changes in real time
Agency costs disappear into the rota
You know agency is expensive but you cannot see exactly what it is costing you shift by shift, or whether the worker even showed up.
Coming in 2027
The hours records you don't have yet
The Employment Rights Act 2025 became law in December 2025, with the main changes for shift workers arriving in 2027. Staff on zero-hours and low-hours contracts will get the right to be offered a contract reflecting the hours they actually work, measured over a reference period. There will also be a right to be paid when a shift is cancelled, moved or cut short at short notice, and a duty to give reasonable notice of shifts. Agency workers are included.
The detail is still being consulted on and the reference period is expected to be twelve weeks, but the practical requirement is already clear: you will need a reliable record, per person, of hours actually worked and shifts actually cancelled, going back months, available on demand.
Most homes are keeping that on a spreadsheet, or not keeping it at all.
BrightCare builds that record as a by-product of running your rota. Approved shifts with the rate locked at approval, hours per staff member, and a logged trail of every cancellation and pickup. Nothing extra for you to do.
Sources: Acas — Employment Rights Act 2025 · Employment Rights Act 2025, legislation.gov.uk
BrightCare is not legal advice and does not make you compliant. The rules are still subject to consultation. What BrightCare gives you is the records you will need.
Features
Less time on rotas. Fewer payroll mistakes. No agency surprises.
BrightCare handles the weekly grind of rotas, shift approval, leave and payroll exports so you can run the home instead of the spreadsheet.
Auto-Generate Rotas
Your rota builds itself from your shift patterns in seconds. What used to take an afternoon now takes one click, and anything the generator cannot fill is flagged before you publish.
Staff Portal
Staff check their shifts, wages and leave balance from their phone, and handle the rest themselves too: holiday and sick leave requests, picking up an open shift or offering one to a colleague, and cancelling a shift they cannot make, all sent to you for approval. Fewer calls to the office and no printed rota going out of date on the noticeboard.
Shift Management
Someone calls in sick or cancels a shift. You approve the cancellation, the shift opens up for other staff to claim, or you assign agency cover on the spot. Need bigger changes, pull a published rota back to draft and drag shifts around until it works. The rota on screen always matches reality on the floor.
Leave Management
Holiday requests come through the portal instead of scraps of paper. You approve with one click and the rota already knows, so nobody gets scheduled while they are away.
Shift Approval & Wage Accuracy
You approve every shift before it counts toward pay, and the rate is locked at that moment. Staff get paid exactly what they worked. No short payments, no awkward conversations, no back pay corrections.
Agency Cost Tracking
Assign agency cover directly on the rota. Track agency costs separately from internal payroll. See your agency spend in real time and control your biggest variable cost.
- Assign agency cover on the rota with rate per shift
- Full confirmation workflow, confirm, no-show or dispute every agency shift
- Agency spend tracked separately from internal payroll with CSV export
Payroll-Ready Exports
One clean CSV for your payroll provider, agency costs kept separate, and once you lock the period nothing changes behind your back. Payroll day stops being the worst day of the month.
AI-Assisted Rota Patterns
Build your fortnightly pattern on the grid or upload your existing rota. AI Assist suggests who fills each empty slot from contracted hours and fairness rules, and flags coverage problems before you save. You stay in control of every suggestion.
Twelve more features covering departments, bulk staff upload, availability, payroll locking and more. See all features
Agency management
Agency spend, confirmed shift by shift.
Most rota tools put agency workers on the schedule and leave the cost to the invoice. BrightCare treats every agency shift as money in motion. Confirm it happened, flag a no show, or raise a dispute, and only confirmed shifts count toward your spend report. You stop paying for workers who never turned up.
See it in actionWhy this exists
Designed by someone who still works the floor
I'm Ola. I'm a care assistant in Darlington and I still work shifts. I designed BrightCare because of the payroll errors and rota chaos I kept watching happen, and because every system I saw was built for cafes and retail and then bent into shape for care.
Fortnightly patterns. Night shifts. Long days. Agency cover at 6am. Leave calculated in hours from contracted hours, not a flat 28 days. That's how care homes actually work, and it's what BrightCare was built around from the start.
You get me on the phone, not a ticket queue.
Working time breaches, flagged before you publish
BrightCare flags on your dashboard when a published rota may breach Working Time Regulations: five or more consecutive shifts, or less than eleven hours rest. Fix it before it becomes a staff problem or an inspection finding.
How It Works
From setup to rota in minutes
Create Your Departments
Create departments like Care, Kitchen, Laundry, Housekeeping and Management. Add the roles within each department, matching your staff records exactly.
Add Your Staff
Add staff manually or upload in bulk. Each staff member gets automatic login credentials by email.
Generate Your Rota
Auto-generate rotas in seconds from your shift templates, staff availability and approved leave.
Review and Manage
Edit, approve and publish rotas. Staff see their shifts instantly on their own portal. Use Shift Review daily to approve completed shifts and confirm staff wages, so staff see confirmed wages update in real time. Manage leave requests, shift changes, and export hours for payroll, all in one place.
At a glance
What's happening today
Open BrightCare in the morning and see where you stand.
Today's coverage
Which departments are fully staffed and where the gaps are.
This week
Shifts scheduled, hours worked, shifts approved.
Waiting on you
Holiday requests, shift changes and cancellations, in one list.
Agency spend
This week and this month, confirmed shifts only.
Fuller reporting, trend analysis and multi-site views are on the roadmap.
Trust & compliance
Security & access
Data is isolated per organisation with role-based access and secure sign-in.
Three user roles: super admin, care home admin and staff, each with appropriate access levels
Complete data isolation: your care home data is never visible to other organisations
Email verification required on signup: 6-digit OTP confirms every new account
Secure session management: tokens expire and refresh automatically to keep accounts safe
Staff Wellbeing
Staff Wellbeing Built In
Because a rota system that burns staff out is working against you.
NHS-Verified Resources
Every staff member has instant access to verified mental health resources including Samaritans, NHS Every Mind Matters, and Mind, available any time from their portal.
Built for Care Workers
Resources chosen specifically for adult social care, including the Care Workers Charity emergency support fund and Skills for Care wellbeing guidance.
Pricing & trial
Flexible subscription plans
Starter, Professional, Enterprise. Monthly or yearly billing. 30-day free trial on all plans.
Save when you pay yearly
Starter
Perfect for a single care home getting started with digital rotas
- Rota generation from your shift patterns
- Coverage indicators
- Agency tracking (confirm, no-show, dispute)
- Payroll export with period locking
- Shift approval, rate locked at approval
- Staff portal (shifts, wages, leave, offers)
- Hours-based leave with SSP
- Working time breach alerts
- Up to 30 staff members
- 2 admin users
- Unlimited departments
- Email support
No credit card required · Cancel anytime
Professional
For established care homes with multiple managers and growing teams
- Everything in Starter, plus:
- AI pattern assist included
- Up to 75 staff members (Starter: Up to 30 staff)
- 5 admin accounts (Starter: 2)
- Priority email support
No credit card required · Cancel anytime
Enterprise
For large care homes and organisations that need full control
- Everything in Professional, plus:
- AI pattern assist included
- Unlimited staff members
- 8 admin accounts
- Phone support
No credit card required · Cancel anytime
All plans include a 30-day free trial. No credit card required. Cancel anytime.
Core features are on every plan. AI pattern assist is included from Professional.
Multi-Site
For groups of 3 or more care homes. One platform across all your sites, with centralised management.
- Everything in Professional
- Unlimited staff per site
- Dedicated account per site, consistent platform across your group
- Priority support
- Founding price, locked for 24 months.
- Custom pricing available for 25+ sites
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about BrightCare
See if BrightCare fits your care home operations
Explore the platform with your team during a 30-day free trial.
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