The desk
How this site works
Every page here is written from public sources opened on the day it was written: the law, the statutory guidance, the NHS pages and the open data of the CQC. Each statement of law carries its section, its version and a reading date, and the stamp at the top of a page is the date of the last such reading.
Last checked on 3 September 2026
What is this handbook?
ROC Handbook is a guide to care and support for adults in England, written from the documents that carry the rules rather than from summaries of them. Six doors open from the front page: home and housing, money and rights, work, learning and leisure, health, working in care, and a dated register of changes. The reader written for is an adult who needs support, the person who helps them day to day, and the worker new to the sector who needs to know which section of which document says what.
Two habits separate these pages from a general article on the same subject. Every statement of law carries the section it comes from, so a disagreement can be taken to the exact words rather than to a paraphrase. And every page carries a reading date, so the age of the reading behind a sentence is visible before the sentence is. The route map shows both habits at once: fourteen steps, each with the section of the Care Act 2014 that carries it and the version that section was read from.
How is a page written?
From sources opened on the day the page is written, and from nothing else. The sources are public and they are named at the foot of every page: the revised text of the Care Act 2014 on legislation.gov.uk, the Care and support statutory guidance on GOV.UK, the NHS pages on annual health checks and on learning disability, and the open data files of the Care Quality Commission. Nothing is written from a memory of a source, from a report about a source, or from another site's summary of one. A source that will not open on the day produces a sentence without the fact, or no sentence at all.
Under each statement of law and each figure sits a line of source with four parts: the document, the section or chapter, the version consulted, and the date it was read. The version carries as much weight as the date. The revised text of the Act is marked Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, and its contents page states that amendments made by the Health and Care Act 2022 have not been applied, which means the printed text and the law in force can differ at those points.
Care Act 2014, notice on the contents page. Version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026, legislation.gov.uk, read on 3 September 2026.
The guidance is dated the same way, and its update date travels with every mention of it: first published on 29 July 2016, last updated on 22 July 2025. Advice given before an update may describe a version that has since moved, and that date is what lets a reader tell the difference.
Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, first published 29 July 2016, last updated 22 July 2025, GOV.UK, read on 3 September 2026.
Quotation stays short and credited. The statute and the guidance are Crown copyright under the Open Government Licence, so a section is named and quoted in part rather than reproduced in full. The NHS pages are quoted briefly and carry the review date printed on them. The data files of the Care Quality Commission are used with the attribution they ask for, and the names of registered managers that those files contain stay in the files.
What does the stamp at the top of a page mean?
It is the date of the last reading of the sources behind that page, and it is the only date on a page that describes this handbook rather than a source. A page whose sources have not moved keeps its stamp. A page re-read after a change carries a newer one, and the reading that produced it is recorded in the register with the date it happened. The stamp and the change date are different facts: the change date belongs to the document, and the reading date belongs to the desk that opened it.
Why do some sentences stop short?
Because the fact behind them has not been read in the source itself. A time limit is printed once the chapter that sets it has been opened. A chapter number appears once the chapter has been named in the document's own list. An amount of money appears only beside the GOV.UK page that carries it, named and dated in the same sentence. Where a table cell would otherwise hold a guess, it holds a description of what is known instead. The reserve costs a page something, and it is kept deliberately: a wrong figure in a letter to a council moves the argument onto ground that cannot be defended, and a blank cell does not.
Where do the photographs come from?
They are made for this handbook, one to a page, from a written description of a scene: a front door, a wall of letter boxes, a lever arch file, a grab rail, an empty waiting room. No photograph of a person appears here, and no image is taken from another publisher, which is why no caption credits one. The pictures work under the same rule as the text: what is on the page is described, and nothing on it is borrowed.
What happens when a page is wrong?
It is corrected where the mistake is, and the correction is dated. The way to raise one is to write to the desk with the page, the sentence and the source that says otherwise. The sentence changes, and the change is logged with its date in dated notes, so that someone who read the earlier version can see what moved and when. A message that arrives without a source gets a reading rather than a reply that settles it: if the source holds, the page holds, and if it does not, the page changes and the note says so.
How can you check a page against its source?
Open what the line of source names, and read the section beside the claim. The four parts of the line exist for that purpose: they say which document, which section, which version and which day. If the section reads differently in the version you open, the difference is worth sending, because a version date is exactly the kind of thing that moves without anyone outside the publisher noticing. The check pays off most often on the pages of law, and your rights under the law carries more of those lines than any other page here.
What this handbook is
These pages are general information about what the law in England says. They are not legal advice about your situation, they assess nobody's needs, and they estimate nobody's eligibility. The law described here is the law of England: Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland run their own systems, and nothing here describes them. A question about one person's case is a question for an advocate or an advice service, and the rights pages set out what can be asked for and when.
Sources read for this page
- Care Act 2014, revised text on legislation.gov.uk, version Latest available (Revised) as at 2 September 2026
- Care and support statutory guidance, Department of Health and Social Care, updated 22 July 2025
- NHS, annual health checks for people with a learning disability, page reviewed 24 September 2025
- Care Quality Commission, Using CQC data
Each source above was opened on 3 September 2026. Where a page here prints a section number or a figure, the source line beside it names the version that number was read from.