17 February 2026 · 9 min read · Arviteni
Why reliable Wi-Fi is now essential infrastructure for care homes, what goes wrong with typical setups, and how to design a network that supports digital care records, video calls, and compliance requirements.
There was a time when Wi-Fi in a care home was a convenience. Something for the office computers and maybe a guest network in the lounge. That time has passed.
Digital care records, electronic medication administration, video calls with families, online staff training, and nurse call systems all depend on reliable wireless connectivity. When the Wi-Fi drops during a medication round or a video call with a resident's family freezes, it is not an IT inconvenience. It directly affects the quality of care.
This guide covers what care home managers and operations directors need to know about getting Wi-Fi right.
The shift from paper to digital care records has fundamentally changed what care homes need from their networks. Wi-Fi is no longer an overhead. It is part of the care system.
Electronic care records. Platforms like Person Centred Software, Nourish, Log my Care, and CareDocs require constant connectivity. Care workers record observations, update care plans, and complete daily notes on tablets and phones throughout their shifts. When the Wi-Fi drops, recording stops, and staff either wait or revert to paper records that then need entering later.
Electronic medication administration (eMAR). Systems like Atlas eMAR run on tablets carried during medication rounds. These tablets move through corridors, bedrooms, and communal areas, requiring seamless wireless coverage and reliable connectivity. If the system cannot verify against the pharmacy database, medication rounds may need to revert to paper MARs. This is a clinical governance concern, not just an IT problem.
Video calls with families. Since the pandemic, video calling has become a permanent feature of care home life. Residents with limited mobility or families who live far away depend on reliable video connections. Each call requires 2 to 4 Mbps in each direction for acceptable quality. When multiple calls happen simultaneously, the bandwidth requirement adds up quickly.
Staff training. Mandatory training through e-learning platforms requires streaming video content. Staff often complete training during quieter periods on shared tablets. When training modules buffer endlessly, compliance deadlines get missed and staff frustration grows.
Everything else. CCTV systems, nurse call dashboards, building sensors, staff communication via Teams, resident personal devices, and visitor Wi-Fi all compete for the same wireless infrastructure.
A typical 60-bed care home might have 80 to 120 Wi-Fi connected devices at any given time when you add up staff devices, care system tablets, communal tablets, IoT sensors, resident personal devices, and visitor phones.
Building construction. Many UK care homes operate in converted Victorian or Edwardian buildings with thick stone or brick walls and concrete floors. These materials significantly weaken Wi-Fi signals. A 2.4 GHz signal can lose over half its strength passing through a single brick wall. Purpose-built homes from the 1970s and 1980s often have reinforced concrete between storeys, which blocks signals almost completely. Even newer builds may have fire-rated walls and doors with metal lining that degrades coverage.
Consumer-grade equipment. Many care homes still rely on domestic routers from their ISP, sometimes supplemented with consumer Wi-Fi extenders. These devices are not designed for environments with 80 or more concurrent connections. Consumer equipment typically supports 10 to 15 simultaneous connections reliably. Beyond that, performance degrades.
Dead spots. Corridors, stairwells, and garden areas are consistently the worst areas for coverage, and they are precisely where care workers need connectivity most. Staff walk between rooms with tablets, do medication rounds along corridors, and support residents in outdoor spaces.
No network segmentation. Many care homes run a single flat network where care system tablets, staff phones, resident devices, CCTV, and guest devices all share the same bandwidth and sit on the same network segment. This creates both performance and security problems. A resident streaming video can slow down the eMAR system during a medication round. More critically, a compromised personal device on the same network could potentially access care record systems.
Insufficient broadband. Rural care homes often have limited broadband options. Some are still on ADSL or older fibre-to-the-cabinet connections delivering 20 to 50 Mbps. When digital care records, video calls, CCTV uploads, and staff training all compete for that bandwidth, everything slows down.
Care home networks should be divided into separate VLANs (Virtual Local Area Networks) to isolate different types of traffic:
This is not optional. Network segmentation is essential for protecting sensitive care data and is directly relevant to both DSPT compliance and Cyber Essentials certification. Guest Wi-Fi traffic must be in a completely separate broadcast domain with no route to care systems.
Enterprise access points from manufacturers like Ubiquiti UniFi, Cisco Meraki, and Aruba are fundamentally different from consumer equipment:
As a general rule, expect one access point per four to six bedrooms in corridor-based layouts, plus dedicated access points in large communal areas. The exact number depends on building construction, and a professional wireless site survey before installation is strongly recommended.
Modern care homes need more bandwidth than many realise. We recommend:
Fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connections often deliver only 10 to 20 Mbps upstream, which is not enough for multiple simultaneous video calls and cloud uploads.
When the internet goes down in a care home with digital records, care staff cannot access or update care plans, medication rounds may need to revert to paper, and family video calls stop. The impact is immediate.
Every care home should have:
The CQC will expect to see that you have considered what happens when technology fails. Complete dependence on digital systems with no fallback plan would be a concern under "Well-led."
The costs break down into broadband, equipment, and installation.
Broadband. Full-fibre business-grade connections typically cost £50 to £150 per month. This is the sweet spot for most care homes, offering adequate bandwidth with an SLA for repairs. Consumer full-fibre at £30 to £50 per month is also viable for smaller homes.
Equipment. A Ubiquiti UniFi setup for a typical 40-bed care home, including a router, managed PoE switch, and six to eight access points, costs roughly £1,500 to £2,500 for the hardware. Cisco Meraki offers similar capability but requires annual licence fees of £100 to £200 per device, which adds up significantly across a multi-site group.
Installation and cabling. Every access point needs an Ethernet cable run back to a PoE switch. In older buildings, running cables through walls and ceilings is often the most disruptive and costly part of the project. Expect £50 to £150 per cable run depending on the building.
Total project cost. A complete network upgrade for a 40-bed care home, including site survey, cabling, equipment, installation, and VLAN configuration, typically costs £3,000 to £8,000. Larger homes with more complex building layouts may be higher.
The ongoing cost of a properly designed network is often lower than what care homes were paying for inadequate infrastructure. In one project across 12 care homes, replacing legacy managed WAN connections with full-fibre broadband and Ubiquiti equipment reduced monthly network costs by 70%, saving over £45,000 per year while increasing bandwidth tenfold.
For care home groups managing multiple sites, the choice of networking platform matters.
Ubiquiti UniFi is increasingly the platform of choice for care providers and the IT partners who support them. There are no recurring licence fees, and all sites can be managed through a single dashboard with real-time visibility of network health, device status, and bandwidth usage. The trade-off is that there is no vendor phone support. It works best when a competent IT partner is managing the network.
Cisco Meraki offers excellent cloud management and analytics but requires annual licence fees per device. A 12-site care group might pay £10,000 to £20,000 per year in licence fees alone.
DrayTek is commonly used for routers and VPN connectivity in UK care settings, often alongside UniFi for Wi-Fi and switching.
The right choice depends on your budget, how many sites you operate, and whether you have an IT partner who can manage the platform effectively.
If your care home is experiencing Wi-Fi problems, the first step is understanding whether the issue is broadband capacity, equipment capability, coverage gaps, or all three. A network assessment identifies the root cause and provides a clear picture of what needs to change.
For care homes across the East Midlands, our technology consulting service includes network design, site surveys, and full deployment for care home environments. We design networks that support digital care delivery, meet compliance requirements, and cost less to run than the infrastructure they replace.
Reliable Wi-Fi in a care home is not about having fast internet. It is about giving care workers the tools they need to deliver care effectively, wherever they are in the building.