We will soon display some service email addresses and phone numbers on our website directory
This change will only apply to certain types of adult and children’s care services.
Due to new Regulations under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016, we will soon publicly display an email address and telephone number for all care services registered with us under the 2016 Act.
The change will ensure our web directory contains complete contact details for the following types of registered services in Wales:
- Care home services
- Domiciliary services
- Secure accommodation services
- Residential family centre services
- Regulated fostering services
- Regulated adoption services
- Regulated advocacy services
- Adult placement services
- Special school residential services
Subject to approval by the Senedd, these Regulations will come into force on 31 December 2023.
For new services registering after 31 December 2023, we will collect a telephone number and service email address at the point of registration.
For existing services, these will be collected as part of our Annual Return exercise.
These types of providers must ensure their service email address and telephone number are kept up-to-date via their CIW Online account.
Which email address will be displayed?
The email address which will be publicly displayed will be the service’s main email address. In many cases, this will be a generic email address, for example office@carehome.com.
However, in some cases, the service email address could contain someone’s name or the address of the service, which providers may not wish to display publicly.
Take action
If you provide one of the above types of service, please take some time to review your service’s main email address and consider whether you will be happy for it to be displayed publicly, or whether you wish to create a new email address for this purpose.
If you wish to change it, you will need to log in to your CIW Online account and update your service’s email address.
If you are happy with it being displayed as it is, you do not need to take any action.
The same is true of your service telephone number.
Questions? Email ciw@gov.wales
Cyber security
Having your email address displayed online may lead to an increase in phishing or scam emails. It is important to be confident about cyber security.
Welsh Government's Cyber Resilience Team recently worked with Welsh police forces to develop a video (External link) based on a real cyber incident in the care sector.
Please take a few minutes to watch the video to learn about the impact of phishing emails and what you can do to protect yourself.