Honest comparison. Public references.
Birdie, CareLineLive, Access PeoplePlanner and PASS are well-established platforms with real strengths. This page sets out where Carefold ends up further forward — and where it doesn't. Anything wrong on this page, tell us and we'll fix it.
Defensible trail
Temporal versioning across plans, assessments, rate cards and MARs. We can reconstruct any record at any point in time — incumbents can't, fully.
Outcomes-first
Outcomes are a first-class engine. Aligned to CQC's Single Assessment Framework as records, not paragraphs. Visit-first systems retrofit this.
Predictive at launch
Pulse — missed-visit risk, wellbeing decline, continuity matching, capacity strain — is in every plan from day one. No incumbent equivalent.
The features Registered Managers ask about.
Sources: vendor documentation, customer-facing FAQs, CQC inspection write-ups citing each system, and our own demos. Public information as of Q2 2026.
| CarefoldUK · 2026 | BirdieUK | CareLineLiveUK | Access PPUK | PASSUK | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Defensible audit trail | |||||
Temporal versioning Care plans, assessments, rate cards, MARs all bitemporal |
✓ Native | — | — | Partial | — |
Side-by-side version diff Compare any two versions of any record |
✓ | — | — | — | — |
As-of point-in-time view "Show me this record as it was on 14 Mar" |
✓ | — | — | — | — |
Immutable append-only audit Every mutation logged with before/after, 7-year retention |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outcomes & CQC SAF | |||||
Outcomes as first-class records Not a sub-section of the care plan |
✓ Engine | Sub-section | Sub-section | Sub-section | Sub-section |
All 34 Quality Statements mapped One-click evidence pack export |
✓ | Partial | Partial | Partial | Partial |
Per-funder outcome export 7 council/ICB schemas at launch + custom |
✓ | — | — | Manual | — |
| Predictive intelligence | |||||
Missed-visit risk forecast (24h) With reasoning, every prediction |
✓ Pulse | — | — | — | — |
Wellbeing-decline alerts Multi-signal: mood, sleep, intake, sentiment |
✓ Pulse | — | — | — | — |
Continuity-aware allocation Pre-assigns preferred carers across windows |
✓ Pulse | Manual | Manual | Manual | — |
7-day capacity strain forecast By branch, by competency |
✓ Pulse | — | — | — | — |
| eMAR & clinical | |||||
eMAR with CD register Two-carer witnessed, running balance |
✓ Full | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Allergy hard-block interlocks BNF interaction warnings at chart entry & administration |
✓ | ✓ | Warning | ✓ | Warning |
PRN protocol with effectiveness Pre/post score, 30 & 60 min review |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | Manual | ✓ |
GP Connect FHIR med-list sync Bi-directional, at launch |
✓ Launch | Roadmap | — | Roadmap | — |
Body map with EPUAP staging Wound timeline photos, dimensions |
✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
NEWS2 auto-escalation Auto-prompt 999 at score 7+ |
✓ | ✓ | Manual | Manual | — |
| Family experience | |||||
Family portal included No per-recipient fee |
✓ Home | Add-on | Add-on | ✓ | ✓ |
Field-level family permissions Per-recipient scoping |
✓ | — | — | Tier-based | Tier-based |
Weekly wellbeing summary Plain-English, Pulse-derived |
✓ | — | — | — | — |
| Commercials | |||||
Per-carer pricing (not per-client) Doesn't penalise winning clients |
✓ | Per-client | ✓ | Hybrid | Per-client |
All modules included in every plan No feature gates by tier |
✓ | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered | Tiered |
Migration engineer included Named, dedicated, named in contract |
✓ Operator+ | Paid add-on | Shared | ✓ | Shared |
Public information as of Q2 2026. We update this table when competitors ship. If anything here is wrong about your platform, please get in touch and we'll correct within a working week.
Where the incumbents do better.
Birdie · brand depth in family-side comms
Birdie's family product has more years in the field than ours. Their consumer brand is sharper. Our Home portal has the better permission model and bundling — but they've spent longer in family living rooms.
Access PeoplePlanner · enterprise breadth
Access has a wider product surface (HR, payroll, finance) for the largest groups. Our Group plan covers our integrations into those tools rather than replicating them. If you want one vendor for everything, Access has us beaten on scope.
CareLineLive · pricing transparency
CareLineLive publish their per-carer pricing clearly. We do the same. We win on density of what's included; they're a fair alternative at the low end of the agency size scale.
PASS · long history of reliability
PASS has been in field at scale for over a decade. Their reliability bar is the one we measure ourselves against. Carefold is the newer system; if "longest uptime track record" is your primary criterion, that matters.
Two to four weeks. Not two quarters.
A typical 50–150-client agency moves onto Carefold in two to four weeks. CSV importers for the eight platforms most often mentioned in our calls are pre-built. A migration engineer is named on day one.
Discovery & mapping
Migration engineer reviews your current setup. Branches, rate cards, roles. Custom fields and reports identified. Sandbox tenant spun up with your branding.
Data import & validation
Clients, care plans, MARs, rate cards, carer documents, training records. Dry-run with row-by-row outcomes. Your team validates the sandbox.
Team training
Two sessions for managers/coordinators, one for finance/quality. One floor-walking session with carers on Move. All recorded, all retained.
Cutover & on-call
Final import. Cutover overnight. We sit on-call for the first week, then pair-mode for the next three. Old system stays accessible read-only for 90 days.
Bring us the procurement questionnaire.
We'll fill it line by line within three working days. No marketing fluff. The same answers we give CQC.