Compare Care Homes Review Posting and Submission Policy

SECTION 1 - GENERAL

Compare Care Homes actively welcomes genuine and honest submissions of user-reviews of the services offered by the UK's 24,000 care homes.

However, we are not a forum for unfair, misleading or dishonest reviews, or for reviews of user experiences that have occurred in the distant past, as the care home may have changed since the initial user experience. As such, we require that all reviewers strictly adhere to the following rules, which have been written to help keep contributions honest, constructive, relevant, and civil:

You MUST:

1) have recent first-hand experience of the services offered by the care home being reviewed. Compare Care Homes is not a place for hearsay.
2) be completely honest about your experiences and accurately represent them. You must certify that all information supplied by you on the Compare Care Homes Website is true, accurate, current, and complete.
3) be clear when making statements of opinion and statements of fact. You must also genuinely hold any opinion(s) that you express.
4) write in English and avoid profanity or unnecessary punctuation that may give the impression of shouting or sarcasm.
5) certify that you have read our Terms and Conditions, understand them, and agree to be bound by them. You must also have legal capacity to be bound by them, and be over 18 years of age.
6) write a balanced review of your experiences. Reviews that focus exclusively on one negative experience may generate an unbalanced review of the care home.

You MUST NOT:

1) identify people by their names. You may, however, refer to people by their job title (i.e. the care home manager, or the chef). You must not make a personal attack on anyone.
2) express your opinion(s) as fact, and you must not submit defamatory content or inferences that are capable of damaging the reputation of an individual or organisation.
3) submit any content that risks prejudicing current or forthcoming prosecution or court proceedings, or any other material that may be in contempt of court. Submissions that include details of deaths and other sensitive events are not likely to be published until all investigations and legal proceedings are complete.
4) submit any content that is false, unlawful, insulting, menacing, threatening, harassing, vulgar, harmful, defamatory, obscene, distressing, lewd, indecent, or material containing profanity, slang, could be constituted as an invasion of privacy, or is otherwise, in our sole opinion, objectionable.
5) give the impression that the submission emanates from us if this is not the case, or impersonate any person, or misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person.
6) breach any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence.
7) upload any advertising or promote any services or web links to other sites.
8) upload content that is patently offensive to the online community, such as content that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual.

Violations of the above rules will result in submissions being rejected.

SECTION 2 - DECLARATIONS

You MUST be willing to certify and declare the following:

Declaration 1) "I certify that this review is my genuine opinion of this care home, and that I have no personal or business affiliation with this establishment, and have not been offered any incentive or payment originating from the establishment to write this user review. Where I have used facts to support my opinion(s), I certify that they are true and accurately presented. I understand that Compare Care Homes has a zero-tolerance policy on fake reviews."

Declaration 2) "I have read, understand, and agree to be bound by, the Terms and Conditions, and the Site Posting and Submission Policy."

The Website Terms and Conditions outline that, by submitting a User Review to our site, you agree to grant us a non-exclusive licence to use that User Review. Although you will still own the copyright in your user review, we will have the right to freely use, edit, alter, reproduce, publish and/or distribute the material contained in your user review. This licence will be free of charge, perpetual and capable of sub-licence in accordance with Section 5 of the Terms and Conditions.

PLEASE NOTE: Your IP Address may be logged when you submit a review to Compare Care Homes. Reviewers that submit false contact information may still be identified through their IP address.

SECTION 3 - NOTICE AND TAKE-DOWN POLICY FOR ILLEGAL WEBSITE CONTENT

Where you have an objection to material posted on the site, please notify us using the hyperlink next to the posted content. We will then review the submission within a reasonable period of time (Max 14 days), to determine whether there has been a breach of the website Terms and Conditions, and/or Posting and Submissions Policy.

When you submit an objection to the content of a care home user review, you must give reasons for your objection(s). As such, and in accordance with Section 3 of the Defamation Act 2013, your objection must meet ALL of the following notification requirements:

a) Your complaint must be made in writing. Please do not contact us by telephone to submit your complaint verbally;
b) You must specify the words or matters complained of, and the person (or persons) to whom they relate;
c) You must specify the publication that contains those words or matters;
d) You must specify why you consider the words or matters to be defamatory, illegal or objectionable;
e) You must specify the details of any matters relied on in the content which you consider to be untrue; and
f) You must specify why you consider the words or matters to be seriously harmful in the circumstances in which they were published.

NOTE: The 14 day notice period starts on the day that you provide us with ALL of the information stated within parts (a) – (f) above.

Where we deem that the contents of a user review should be removed, the text of the review will be removed, and the user-submitted star ratings may remain. We may, in accordance with our Terms and Conditions, post reasons for, or a summary of reasons for the objection in substitution of the original user review.

SECTION 4 - USEFUL TIPS FOR CARE HOME PROVIDERS ON RECEIPT OF A REVIEW

Care Home Providers are normally contacted by email on receipt of a review. The email will normally contain the content of the review, with the reviewer's personal information removed. A link, explaining our moderation process will also be included. Care home providers will be asked to either comment or object to a review, and to provide a response within a reasonable period. We have compiled the list below based upon some of the more common questions raised:

1) Turning a negative comment into a positive outcome - In many cases, the care home provider will likely be aware of negative user experiences, and will have already taken steps to address these. By responding to the review, the care home provider can demonstrate how these issues have already been resolved for the betterment of the care that they provide.

2) The reviewer has misconstrued certain aspects of the home - Reviewers experience care homes from a different perspective than providers. For example, where a reviewer is a family member, they may only visit in the evenings, and may miss day-time activities and care that is provided during the day-time. This can influence individual opinions about the care home as a whole. Where a provider believes this to be the case, we suggest that this is pointed out within the response to the review. For example, a reviewer may not see day-time entertainment, and may incorrectly assume that none is provided at the home. In this scenario, we encourage the care home provider to point out the misconception.

SECTION 5 - GUIDELINES ON THE AVOIDANCE OF REVIEW FRAUD

The following actions may be considered fraudulent:

Attempts by an owner (or agents working on behalf of the ownership of a property) to boost the reputation of a care home by:

- Writing a review for their own property
- Asking friends or relatives to write positive reviews
- Submitting a review on behalf of a guest without their knowledge

- Copying comment cards and submitting them as reviews
- Pressuring a Compare Care Homes user to remove a negative user review
- Offering incentives such as discounts, upgrades, or any special treatment in exchange for reviews
- Hiring an optimisation company, third party marketing organisation, or anyone to submit false reviews
- Impersonating a competitor or a guest in any way
- Attempting to damage his/her competitors by submitting a negative review.

Please Note: Any attempt to mislead, influence or impersonate a care home user is considered fraudulent and will be subject to penalty. We will fully cooperate with relevant authorities where fraud or attempted fraud is detected.

SECTION 6 - ACTIONS UPON RECEIPT OF A REVIEW

Reviews are not automatically published on submission. All reviews are moderated to ensure compliance with the policies outlined in Section 1 of this document. The moderation process may include the sharing the content of a review with a care provider in order to obtain comments, and to verify any factual inferences contained within the review. Where this is undertaken we will not voluntarily share your personal information, IP address, or contact information with the third party without your permission. However, please note that, when unlawful material is submitted, care home providers may have recourse to legal proceedings to force the disclosure of reviewer contact information and identity. Peolsford Ltd will cooperate fully with all such orders, should they be made.

SECTION 7 - SHARING OF REVIEW CONTENT WITH THIRD PARTIES

By submiting a review, you hereby acknowledge and authorise Compare Care Homes to share the review content (but not your personal information such as Name, email address or IP address) with third parties, regulatory bodies and other healthcare organisations such as the NHS and the Care Quality Commission for the purposes of providing feedback on the quality of care provided at a care home.