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: tool.teamzlab.com/apps/always-ready-care/

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

• App: tool.teamzlab.com/apps/always-ready-care/
• Free tools: CQC Checklist | Compliance Score | Readiness Quiz

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

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