As of 13 August 2026, AI can only partly find a care home for your parent.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Do it yourself

   Second choice

   A chat interface, chat-fluent skill, and roughly 1 hour until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Write down your parent's care needs, mobility, communication, dementia or nursing requirements, preferred area, move timeframe, funding position, must-haves and deal-breakers.
   2. Open the relevant UK regulator's current care-home information, such as the Care Quality Commission in England, and record the regulator, inspection information and address for each possible home.
   3. Paste your requirements and the verified details into the prompt, asking the chatbot to separate official facts, provider claims and information still needing confirmation.
   4. Call each shortlisted home using the chatbot's questions and ask about current vacancies, fees, contracts, staffing, care provision, visiting, activities, medication, emergencies and whether it can meet your parent's specific needs.
   5. Open the relevant local council or NHS information and check the assessment, funding and care-planning steps that apply to your parent before treating a place as affordable or available.
   6. Visit the strongest homes with the checklist, speak to staff and residents where appropriate, inspect the room and shared areas, and compare what you saw with the written claims.
   7. Give your parent an appropriate role in the decision, confirm consent for sharing their information, and send only the necessary details to the chosen home or professional adviser.

   Prompt

   Help me find and compare care homes in England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland for my parent. Use only information I provide or clearly identified current public sources, and label anything you cannot verify. Do not invent vacancies, fees, ratings, inspection results, staffing levels, care services or travel times.
   
   My requirements:
   - Area or postcode: [area or postcode]
   - Maximum travel distance or journey: [distance or journey]
   - Type of care needed: [residential, nursing, dementia, respite or other]
   - Relevant health, mobility and communication needs: [details]
   - Preferred move timeframe: [timeframe]
   - Funding position or local-authority involvement: [details]
   - Must-haves: [list]
   - Preferences: [list]
   - Deal-breakers: [list]
   
   Create a shortlist using current official or provider sources where available. For each home, give its name, address, regulator and inspection information, stated care types, contact details, published fees if available, vacancy information if explicitly confirmed, and questions that still need answering. Separate verified facts, provider claims and your suggestions. Do not rank a home as suitable unless the evidence supports the specific care needs. Tell me what to check with the relevant UK regulator, local council and each home, and give me a call script and visit checklist. If my parent has urgent or worrying symptoms, tell me to contact NHS 111 rather than trying to diagnose them.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.

3. Hand it to a person

   The distant third

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.