Domiciliary Care Policies vs Residential Care Policies: Key Differences Explained
The policies required for a domiciliary care service are not simply a lighter version of those needed for a care home. This guide explains the key differences and what each type of provider must have in place to satisfy CQC.
By HeroDocs Team
It is tempting to treat a domiciliary care policy set as a lighter version of a care home's. It is not. Domiciliary care policies and residential care policies answer different risks, because the care happens in different places.
Both providers register with the Care Quality Commission. Both meet the same fundamental standards. What differs is how each policy must be written. That matters whether you are registering for the first time, or adding a second service type.
Why the Two Settings Need Different Policies
The difference is the place where care happens.
In a residential care home, the provider controls the building, the staffing and the daily routine.
In a domiciliary care service, care workers visit people in their own homes. The provider controls far less: not the environment, not who else is there, and not the risks in the house.
That changes the policies you need. A care home policy with the provider name swapped will not survive CQC scrutiny in a domiciliary service. The same is true the other way round.
Policies Required by Both Types of Provider
Both care homes and domiciliary services need this core set:
Safeguarding adults
Health and safety
Infection prevention and control
Medicines management
Complaints procedure
Whistleblowing
Confidentiality and data protection
Recruitment and safer staffing
Training and supervision
Equality and diversity
The legal duty behind each one is the same. The content must be tailored to how the work is really done.
Take infection control in a domiciliary service. It has to cover:
Working across many households in one day
Managing PPE when there is nowhere to store it in a client's home
Handling an outbreak when people are spread across a town, not sharing a building
Our full lists are here: care home policies and procedures and domiciliary care policies.
Policies Specific to Domiciliary Care Services
Some policies exist only in home care, because the work happens in someone else's house.
Lone Working
This is the biggest difference between the two settings, because care workers are alone, often where nobody else can see the risk. A lone working policy must cover:
How workers are monitored during visits
How they raise a concern in the moment
What happens when a worker does not check in
How the service responds when a worker is left unsafe
Key Holding and Home Access
Many domiciliary providers hold keys or door codes. The policy must set out:
How keys and codes are stored and tracked
Who is allowed to use them
What to do when a key is lost, or a code is shared
Environmental Risk Assessment
Workers need a clear way to assess and report hazards inside a person's own home.
Travel Between Visits
This covers safety on the road, and what to do when something goes wrong between calls.
Managing Refusals or Non-Attendance
The policy must say what to do when someone refuses care, or is not home when the worker arrives.
Residential Care Policies: What Only a Care Home Needs
Care homes carry their own requirements. Most do not apply to home care.
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS)
DoLS apply in care homes and hospitals. A care home needs a policy covering:
How it spots that an authorisation may be needed
How it applies
How it reviews and manages an authorisation once granted
Keep this one current. The Supreme Court changed the test on 2 June 2026, and there is no longer an "acid test". Our guide to DoLS after the 2026 ruling explains what replaced it.
This does not apply in the same way in home care. People live in their own homes, and the provider has not deprived them of their liberty. Where arrangements in a person's own home do amount to a deprivation, the authority comes from the Court of Protection instead.
Nutrition and Hydration
A care home plans and serves meals all day, so the policy runs deeper. A domiciliary provider covers nutrition in care planning, but the job is monitoring and reporting, not menus.
Missing Person Procedures
A care home needs a procedure for a resident who leaves without telling anyone. A domiciliary provider faces a different version: no answer at the door, no contact, and a worry about the person inside.
How CQC Assesses Policy Compliance in Each Setting
CQC uses the same five key questions everywhere: Safe, Effective, Caring, Responsive and Well-led. What inspectors look at underneath them changes with the setting.
What Inspectors Focus On | Domiciliary Care | Residential Care Home |
|---|---|---|
Lone working arrangements | Key area of scrutiny | Less relevant |
Medicines management | General processes | Detailed, complex processes |
DoLS authorisations | Not usually applicable | Key area of scrutiny |
Infection control | Across multiple households | Within a shared building |
Monitoring service users | Remote monitoring challenges | Day-to-day contact and observation |
The core test does not change: do your policies match how your service really works, and can staff show they follow them?
Running Both a Care Home and a Domiciliary Service
Some organisations run both, sometimes under one registered provider, and a single combined policy set looks efficient on paper. In practice it rarely works.
CQC registers each location separately. An inspector for the home care service expects to see policies for that service. A document that tries to cover both is hard for staff to read, and often serves neither setting well.
Better practice is a separate policy set for each service type, sharing the foundations and cross-referencing wherever the two processes meet.
If you are building policy documentation for either setting, HeroDocs provides separately tailored policy suites, written to CQC requirements and to the practical reality of each type of care.
Sources
Health and Social Care Act 2008 (Regulated Activities) Regulations 2014
Department of Health and Social Care, UK Supreme Court 2026 judgment on what constitutes a deprivation of liberty
Last checked: 28 September 2026.
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