Posted by Rob King

The elderly care website for self-funding families

“Hello, I am Debbie Harris, and I can’t begin to tell you how determined I am to raise the profile of later life living, and the quality of elder care throughout the UK. With Autumna.co.uk, I intend to provide people, particularly those who pay for their own elder care, with the knowledge and confidence to take control of their future, and make the right care choices for their later life."

Portrait of Debbie Harris, Founder of Autumna
Debbie Harris, Founder of Autumna

“And make no bones about it, people paying for their own care – self-funders as they are often called by the social care sector – do have a choice. So, I want to give care providers, through Autumna, the best possible opportunity to promote and deliver quality elder care. I want to give families searching for care, for their elderly parents, the best chance of finding the right care homes, the quality home care agencies and live in care services. And by doing this, I want to raise the standard of elderly social care across the board, not just for the people who can fund it themselves, but also, by extension, for those who are funded by their local authority."

“If you are interested to know more – whether you are an elder care provider, a care seeker, or a company interested in partnering with us in bringing innovation to the care sector as a whole, then please get in touch with me.”

Debbie Harris

For many of us, getting old is our greatest fear… an unspoken dread... the elephant in the room.

Autumna plans to change that, bringing later life and the benefits to be gained from it, into the spotlight. We’re going to give people the confidence to plan ahead and ensure their hopes for later life are fulfilled. We’re going to help people taking care of elderly parents to help them make the right choices as they grow older.

How can I get help making the right elder care choices?

Very few people plan for old age. It’s natural not to worry about things like geriatric care until circumstances mean you really have to.

But it’s a lack of foresight that all too often leads to a poor quality of later life. It’s not helped by the fact that information about the different elder care providers can be very hard to find. It’s not that there’s too little. In many ways it’s that there’s too much. The hard bit is that until now, with Autumna.co.uk, there was nowhere to find an independent, unbiased guide to the best elderly care providers throughout the UK. The website includes the three main elder care services – care homes, home care and live-in care, presented in a simple,  easy-to-navigate format.

Most care directories, work on a referral fee basis and these referral fees are often hidden. Not Autumna though. Care providers pay a subscription fee to be on our site. We don't sell your loved ones' details to the highest bidder - as is so often the case. Our directory covers every registered care provider in the UK - not just the ones with the largest promotional budgets.

With Autumna, later life care providers can market themselves effectively on a level playing field. The whole philosophy of Autumna is transparency. Information that helps people find the elder care services they are looking for is our currency. So the more information a care provider gives, that is relevant to an individual’s search, the higher they will appear on an Autumna search.

Which means that, for anyone concerned with care for the elderly, Autumna.co.uk has to be the logical choice.

Autumna is the solution to the search for elderly care.

Autumna is and innovative platform that challenges how elder care is perceived, sourced and delivered. It provides everything the elder care seeker needs to know about, all in one place - residential care homes, nursing homes, dementia care homes, home care agencies, live-in care providers and retirement living developments. It's easy to navigate. Easy to compare. And totally independent.

Autumna is taking the confusion and fear away from your elder care search.

18 months in the making, the Autumna platform offers elder care providers a better shop window than has existed anywhere before. And it provides self-funding families – people paying for their own care - with support that has been sorely lacking to date.

Care homes, home care and live-in care companies, all on one site. All will be encouraged to market their services on the Autumna Platform, with the opportunity (through an enhanced listing), to provide far greater detail than is available on other platforms.

This means that anyone looking for care, whether it’s for them or for an elderly relative, can conduct a really deep, bespoke search according to their specific needs.

And the best thing for all parties is this: no care provider will be able to ‘buy position’ on the platform – we are offering a truly level playing field to every organisation that opts for an enhanced listing on the site. Which means the end user of care gets to see the providers that really are best for them according to their search criteria.

Autumna is championing innovation in elder care!

Autumna will herald and promote innovations that will have a measurably positive effect on the later life care sector and its users – such as digital care plans, family portals and ongoing industry training.

There are free advice lines on how to find elder care, how to pay for senior care and the legalities around decision-making and expenditure – topics that few people are familiar with but that many worry about. In time, we’ll enable care providers to display detailed staff profiles so that care seekers and their relatives can see the people who are likely to be caring for them.

In short, Autumna will be doing all it can to encourage transparency, promote quality and respect the later life care customer.

With the first phase of the platform going live in August 2019, Autumna aims to bridge the gap between providers and users of care with innumerable benefits for both:

The benefits of an elder care search on Autumna

    • An open marketplace approach to information and exposure
    • Clear, unbiased display and navigation; trustworthy information is key
    • Independent and transparent: care providers cannot pay to be top
    • Results are conveniently ranked by the amount of information provided
    • Free for consumers to use, eg: the public, care professionals, GPs, hospital discharge teams and providers of employee benefit programmes.
    • Comprehensive listing of all elder care providers - residential care homes, nursing homes, dementia care homes - live-in care and home care agancies too.
    • Over 200 search fields - including: location, price, type of care and availability
    • Intuitive and user-friendly - designed for all IT skill levels
    • Free legal, care and funding advice, available via live chat or helpline


What are the care provider benefits of listing with Autumna?



    • Multi-channel marketing
    • Fixed subscription fee
    • Absolutely no referral fees
    • 'Stand out' from other care providers by highlighting additional service offerings
    • Extensive profile page to market services to care seekers
    • The most user-friendly index of information on care providers
    • Multiple, detailed search options to pre-qualify leads
    • An API to display all care providers with a CQC listing

Everything you need to know about the Autumna senior care platform

Watch how Debbie Harris explains further how this innovative elder care advice and comparison platform will challenge how later life care is perceived, sourced and delivered.


For free support and guidance on your best care options, call the Autumna advice line on 01892 33 53 30 or check out the care advice page here.

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The UK's largest & most detailed directory of elderly care and retirement living options

10,395

Care Homes

12,370

Home Care Services

1,314

Live-in Care Services

1,819

Retirement Living Developments

Autumna is the UK's largest and most comprehensive later-life living & elderly care directory. Our detailed search facility and team of expert advisors can help you find the best care homes, nursing homes, retirement homes, retirement villages, home care, and live-in care services for you or your loved one's needs. Our website is free to use, we are proudly independent, and we never take referral fees.