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How long do you have to keep care records in the UK?

Short answer

There is no single number. Most adult social care providers work to the Records Management Code of Practice for Health and Social Care, which is the reference point CQC and local authorities use. For adult care records that generally means eight years after care ends; children's records are kept until the 25th birthday; staff records for six years after employment ends. Write your own retention schedule from it and keep to it.

Where the periods come from

The Care Quality Commission does not publish a table of years. Regulation 17 requires you to keep accurate, complete records and hold them securely for as long as necessary. UK GDPR says the opposite thing in the same breath: keep personal data no longer than necessary. The document that turns both into actual numbers is the Records Management Code of Practice, published for health and adult social care in England. Most providers, and most inspectors, treat it as the standard.

The periods providers usually work to

  • Adult care records: eight years after the care ended or the last contact.
  • Children's records: until the person's 25th birthday, or 26th if they were 17 when care ended.
  • Safeguarding records: often longer, and some providers keep them until the person's death or for the life of the organisation. Take advice on these.
  • Medication administration records: generally kept with the care record.
  • Staff files, including DBS outcome and training records: six years after employment ends is the usual figure, driven by the limitation period for claims. Keep the DBS certificate number and date, not a copy of the certificate.
  • Accident and incident records: at least three years, and longer where a child or a serious injury is involved.

Check the Code, your insurer and your commissioning contracts, which sometimes ask for longer. Then write it down as your retention schedule.

Why a written schedule matters more than the numbers

An inspector is less interested in whether you chose eight years or nine than in whether you have a policy, whether staff follow it, and whether you can show a record when asked. A schedule also answers the GDPR question in reverse: it is your evidence that you are not keeping data forever.

Keeping records for eight years without a cabinet

Paper is where retention goes wrong. Files get damp, get lost in an office move, or get shredded by someone tidying. Electronic care records fix the practical problem: every visit note, medication record and care plan is stored with its date, backed up, and retrievable for a person or a date range in seconds. When the retention period ends, deletion is a policy step rather than a skip.

Exhale Care Solution holds the care record; Exhale HR holds the staff record. Both are hosted in the UK, and both can produce the evidence for one person or a whole team when someone asks. Evidencing training for an inspection covers the staff side.

The product behind this guide

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Everything above is how Exhale Care Solution already works. A demo takes about twenty minutes; bring the thing you find most annoying about your current setup.

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  • Care notes written at the visit, not at the weekend
  • Visits verified by location, so evidence is not a claim
  • Medication records kept as they happen
  • A family portal that stops the reassurance calls

Questions people ask alongside this one

Straight answers

No. An electronic record is a record. What matters is that it is accurate, secure, backed up and retrievable. Scanned historic paper can be shredded once you have confirmed the scan is complete and legible.

Yes. A subject access request can be made by the person or, in some circumstances, on their behalf. That is one of the reasons the record must be retrievable for the whole retention period.

The retention period still applies. If the service closes, the records must be transferred to a successor or kept securely by the provider until the period ends. Plan this before the closure, not after.

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