Care Home HQ and Care Home Site data is supplied by a third party publishing company that maintains a database of all Care Homes in the UK in support of the production of hardcopy guides which are extremely important within the Care Homes sector. All Care Homes in England and Wales are required to be registered with one of the regulatory bodies:

• Care Quality Commission: Care Homes in England
• Care and Social Services Inspectorate Wales: Care Homes in Wales

The ODS supplier receives extracts from each of these sources in order to update its databases, as well as undertaking a number of additional procedures to ensure the data is as up to date as possible. The data is supplied across three different files: one containing information on Care Home HQs, one containing information on Care Home Sites, and an additional file containing 'successor' records - essentially a mapping file which maintains links between organisations and sites that have closed and then been preceded by another. The new Care Home HQ and Care Home Site data was introduced within DSCN 20/2009, published on 6 October 2009. Monthly and Quarterly Amendment files are available for this data.