How to choose care home management software in 2026

Ten questions that separate serious vendors from pretty demos

1. Is it hosted entirely in the EU? Ask for the specific region.
2. Is there AES-256-GCM encryption? Without a concrete algorithm, there is no real security.
3. Are they working towards ENS Medium category alignment? With a documented process, not marketing only.
4. Real public APIs? GraphQL, REST and MCP — not “integration on request”.
5. Native multi-tenant? If you have several centres, require Business Units.
6. Granular roles? RBAC + ABAC, not “global” roles.
7. Immutable audit? Ask to see a real export.
8. Deployment in 4–6 weeks? If they say 6 months, that’s a bad sign.
9. Migration template? Excel, CSV, previous ERP.
10. Exit guarantee? How you recover all your data in JSON or CSV.

What decides success

• That care staff use it without intensive training.
• That the monthly cost does not balloon with surprise add-ons.
• That the vendor responds in under 4 hours in production.

Need an editable checklist? Request the Excel version and we will adapt it to your case.