I Built a Care Home Compliance App in 2 Weeks — Here Is the Tech Stack

I built a full compliance evidence app for UK care homes in 2 weeks. Here's the tech stack, architecture decisions, and what I learned about building for healthcare.

The Problem

UK care homes must maintain continuous compliance evidence for CQC (Care Quality Commission) inspections. There are 29,700+ registered care locations in England. 37% still use paper. The rest use expensive all-in-one platforms (£179-£4,500/month) that require ripping out existing systems.

Nobody offers a lightweight evidence-only layer that works alongside existing software.

What I Built

AlwaysReady Care — a PWA that does one thing: compliance evidence capture, review, and export.

Live: always-ready-care.web.app

Features

  • 12 evidence templates (medication, personal care, safeguarding, incidents, etc.)
  • AI-assisted evidence structuring (rule-based, no API keys in frontend)
  • 21 compliance categories mapped to CQC 5 key questions
  • Role-based access (Carer → Senior → Manager → Director → Admin)
  • Real-time evidence review (approve/reject workflow)
  • Compliance readiness dashboard with SVG score circle
  • Follow-up action tracking with overdue alerts
  • One-click inspection pack generation
  • Offline-first (Service Worker + IndexedDB + Firestore persistence)
  • Team management (admin panel)
  • PWA installable with app icons and status bar theming

Tech Stack

  • Frontend: Pure HTML/CSS/JS (no framework, no build step)
  • Backend: Firebase (Auth, Firestore, Storage, Hosting)
  • Auth: Google Sign-In + Email/Password + Anonymous
  • Offline: Service Worker + IndexedDB queue + Background Sync API
  • AI: Client-side rule-based analysis (12 risk keyword categories, tag extraction)
  • Design: Custom CSS with dark/light theme via CSS custom properties
  • PWA: manifest.json, 10 icon sizes, apple-mobile-web-app-capable

Total JS: ~2,500 lines. Total CSS: ~2,000 lines. No dependencies except Firebase SDK.

Why No Framework?

Healthcare software needs to be: 1. Fast — carers have 60 seconds between tasks 2. Offline-ready — rural care homes have spotty internet 3. Simple to deploy — one folder to Firebase Hosting 4. Easy to audit — no node_modules black box for compliance review

Vanilla JS + Firebase compat SDK gave me all of this with zero build complexity.

Firestore Structure

` orgs/{orgId}/ users/{uid} → role, siteIds sites/{siteId} → name, address evidence/{id} → type, status, rawText, manualTags, attachments actions/{id} → title, priority, status, dueDate packs/{id} → dateRange, evidenceCount config/categories → required compliance categories auditLogs/{id} → immutable action log `

Security rules enforce org-level isolation. Evidence documents can never be deleted (audit trail requirement). Audit logs are create-only (immutable).

The AI Part (No API Keys Exposed)

Instead of calling Gemini/OpenAI from the frontend, I built a rule-based analysis engine:

  • 22 tag categories with keyword matching (medication, safeguarding, falls, etc.)
  • 12 risk detection keywords (fall, injury, bruise, bleeding, choking, etc.)
  • Risk level scoring (low/medium/high based on keyword count)
  • Follow-up action suggestions based on detected risks

It's not as smart as an LLM, but it's:

  • Free (no API costs)
  • Private (nothing leaves the browser)
  • Instant (no network latency)
  • Deterministic (same input = same output, important for healthcare)

A real Gemini backend is planned for the Pro tier.

Organic Growth Strategy

Instead of paid marketing, I built:

  • 40 location-specific SEO pages targeting "care home compliance software [city]" for every major UK city
  • 3 free CQC tools (checklist, score calculator, readiness quiz) that funnel to the app
  • FAQ schema targeting "how to prepare for CQC inspection" and similar questions

All leveraging an existing tool site with 2,100+ indexed pages and established domain authority.

What I'd Do Differently

1. Start with the PDF export — care managers care most about the inspection pack 2. Build the admin panel first — the buyer (manager) needs to add their team before carers can use it 3. Talk to a care home manager before building — I built features based on research, but real user feedback would have saved time

Try It

If you work in UK social care or know someone who does, I'd love feedback.

---

Originally published at https://tool.teamzlab.com

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Know If Someone Is Monitoring Your Phone — 8 Signs & Free Detection App (Android)

Something feels wrong. Your partner knows things you only searched privately. Your employer seems aware of conversations from your personal phone. Someone keeps showing up at places you only visited once, found through apps. You're not paranoid. Phone monitoring is more common than most people realize — and most victims never discover it because monitoring apps are designed to be completely invisible. This guide explains how phone monitoring works, the 8 warning signs to look for, and how to detect it for free on Android. How Phone Monitoring Actually Works Modern monitoring apps don't need to be visible to work. They exploit Android's legitimate features: Accessibility Services: Designed for screen readers, this permission lets an app read every screen on your phone — messages, passwords, browser URLs, everything you type. Most stalkerware runs as an Accessibility Service. Device Administrator: Gives the app system-level control. Apps with Device Admin status...
Read more

I Built 1,700+ Free Browser Tools in 2 Weeks — Here's What Actually Works

Two weeks ago, I launched tool.teamzlab.com with 1,700+ browser-based tools. No backend. No signups. No data collection. Everything runs client-side. Here's what happened, what I learned, and the tools people actually use. The stack Pure HTML/CSS/JS — no React, no Next.js, no build step GitHub Pages — free hosting, zero server costs CSS custom properties — one design system, dark/light mode across 1,700 pages Chrome AI + Transformers.js — AI features that run in the browser, no API keys Pre-commit hooks — auto-rebuild search index, sitemap, SEO validation on every commit Total monthly cost: $0 What surprised me Bing sends more traffic than Google. After 2 weeks, Bing organic is my #2 traffic source (530 sessions/week). Google is still warming up. If you're building tools, don't ignore Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow. People spend 3+ minutes on tools that generate something. My QR Card Generator averages 112 seconds per session. The Cheque Book...
Read more

How to Know If Someone Is Monitoring Your Phone — 8 Signs & Free Detection App (Android)

Something feels wrong. Your partner knows things you only searched privately. Your employer seems aware of conversations from your personal phone. Someone keeps showing up at places you only visited once, found through apps. You're not paranoid. Phone monitoring is more common than most people realize — and most victims never discover it because monitoring apps are designed to be completely invisible. This guide explains how phone monitoring works, the 8 warning signs to look for, and how to detect it for free on Android. How Phone Monitoring Actually Works Modern monitoring apps don't need to be visible to work. They exploit Android's legitimate features: Accessibility Services: Designed for screen readers, this permission lets an app read every screen on your phone — messages, passwords, browser URLs, everything you type. Most stalkerware runs as an Accessibility Service. Device Administrator: Gives the app system-level control. Apps with Device Admin status...
Read more