# How to make a virtual tour for a care home URL: https://www.panoramr.com/guides/how-to-make-a-virtual-tour-for-a-care-home Published: 2026-11-02 Updated: 2026-11-02 To make a virtual tour for a care home, take one 360° photo of each place a family would stand: the entrance, the lounges and dining room, a typical bedroom, the garden, the lifts and ramps. Photograph the rooms when they are empty, with no residents, staff, names or records in view, and with the home's permission. Upload the photos to a tour maker such as Panoramr, link the rooms, blur anything that could identify a person and share the tour only by link or password. A care home usually needs 15 to 30 photos. ## What a tour does for a care home Choosing a care home is hard to do from photos. A 360° tour lets a family look round calmly, from home, before they visit: the lounges, a bedroom, the dining room and the garden. Relatives who live far away can walk through it together and arrive with their questions ready. You need a 360° camera on a tripod, or a 360° photographer (Panoramr's [Hire a Creator directory](https://www.panoramr.com/directory) lists them), and a tour maker. This guide uses Panoramr, which runs in the browser and is free to make tours with. [The care homes page](https://www.panoramr.com/industries/healthcare-care-homes) has the same list of rooms. ## What to photograph Take one 360° photo for each place a family would stand: - the car park, the entrance and reception - the lounges and the dining room - a typical bedroom, and an en-suite - the garden and any quiet room - activity rooms, the salon or the café - lifts, ramps and accessible toilets A care home usually needs 15 to 30 photos. Start with the entrance, the lounge, a bedroom and the garden, and add the rest later. ## Privacy and permission A 360° photo shows everything around the camera, including what is behind it, so a care home needs more care than most places. Panoramr's [Safeguarding Statement](https://www.panoramr.com/safeguarding) is written for care settings, and says what to do before you publish. In short: - **Get the home's permission first.** If you are a photographer, agree the day and the rooms with the home before you arrive. Whoever publishes a tour needs the permission of the people and places it shows (clause 5.5 of the [Terms](https://www.panoramr.com/terms)). - **Shoot when the rooms are empty.** Lounges and the dining room between activities and meals, so no residents are in the photos. - **Leave staff out too.** Fire the camera from its phone app from the corridor and wait outside the room. - **Choose the rooms with care.** Photograph a vacant bedroom where you can. A room that is somebody's own goes in only with their permission, under the home's own policy. - **Look for what identifies a person.** Names on doors, notice boards and whiteboards, photographs on walls, registers, care plans and medical notes. Move them before you take the photo, or blur them. - **Keep out what would put people at risk,** such as door and alarm codes, the way into a secure area, or where keys are kept. The Safeguarding Statement does not replace the home's own safeguarding policy. For what the law or your regulator asks of a care home that publishes pictures of its rooms, check with your registered manager and your regulator. Panoramr's pages do not say that a tour meets any standard. ### What blur does, and does not do Panoramr can blur a face or a number plate in a photo. You draw a box round the area, or, where the team has switched it on, a button looks for faces and lists the ones it finds (it does not look for number plates, and a face that is small, turned away or in shadow may be missed, so check the photo yourself). The blur is made into the photo's own pictures, so every tour that shows the photo is blurred. The owner can take a blur away later. A blur cannot reach a copy somebody downloaded before, a page somebody still has open, or a copy already sent to Google Street View. So blur, or better still avoid, before you publish ([how blur works](https://www.panoramr.com/help/blur-faces-and-number-plates)). ## Build the tour 1. **Export each photo as a 360° JPEG**, twice as wide as it is tall, and upload them in Panoramr: click Create Tour and drop them in. 2. **Link the rooms**, so a family walks from the entrance to the lounge and on to the garden as they would on a visit. 3. **Add a floor plan** if you have one, so families see where each room is and jump to any of them ([floor plans](https://www.panoramr.com/help/adding-floor-plans-and-interactive-minimaps-to-your-tours)). 4. **Add notes where they help:** visiting hours, where to park, the lift to the first floor. 5. **Show step-free access.** Photograph the ramps, lifts, wide doorways and accessible toilets so people who need them can see them in advance. 6. **Record a welcome.** A recorded welcome from the manager can play in the lounge. Every tour also has a plain text version, with each room's name, description and notes, for visitors who cannot see the photos. Panoramr does not claim that it meets an accessibility standard ([accessibility in a tour](https://www.panoramr.com/help/accessibility-settings-reduced-motion-and-screen-reader-support-in-360)). ## Put it online, and decide who can see it A new tour is a private draft: only you and the people you add can open it. When you publish it, you choose who else can. - **Only people you send the link to.** The tour opens at a long link that cannot be guessed. It is kept off Panoramr's Explore page and your creator profile, and search engines are asked not to list it. Anyone you send the link to can pass it on. - **Only people who know the password.** Visitors type a password before the tour opens, which you can change at any time. - **Anyone with its address,** if you want the tour on your website for everyone. Copy the embed code from the Publish tab and paste it into your page ([embed a tour](https://www.panoramr.com/help/how-to-embed-a-360-virtual-tour-on-wordpress-squarespace-and-wix)). Keeping a tour to its link or a password needs hosting, in a Vault or in your plan ([who can see a tour](https://www.panoramr.com/help/tour-privacy-settings-public-unlisted-and-password-protected)). A tour you have not hosted is not private once it is published. ## What it costs Making and previewing a tour is free. To host it with your own branding, a care home with 15 to 30 photos fits a Vault for up to 36 panoramas: £36 for a year, £70 for three or £99 for five. A group of homes can host every home's tour together on a plan: Pro is £99 a year for 250 panoramas online at once. [How much a virtual tour costs](https://www.panoramr.com/guides/how-much-does-a-360-virtual-tour-cost) sets out the camera and the other routes. ## Questions ### How many 360° photos does a care home tour need? Usually 15 to 30: the entrance, the lounges, the dining room, a bedroom and en-suite, the garden and the lifts and ramps. Start with the rooms families ask about and add the rest later. ### Can we leave residents and staff out of the tour? Yes. Take the photos when the rooms are empty, wait outside the room and fire the camera from your phone. Check behind the camera too, since a 360° photo shows everything around it. If anything identifies a person, move it or blur it. ### Can we share the tour only with families who ask? Yes. A hosted tour can be open only to people with its link, or only to people who know its password, and either one keeps it off Explore. Anyone you send the link to can pass it on. ### Does blur remove a face for good? It is made into the photo's own pictures, so every tour that shows the photo is blurred. It cannot change a copy somebody downloaded earlier, a page still open, or a copy already sent to Google Street View. ### Is there a text version for people who cannot see the photos? Yes, every tour has one: a plain page with each room's name, description and notes. ### Is there anything a care home must check before it publishes? Check the Safeguarding Statement and your own safeguarding policy, and check with your registered manager and your regulator about what applies to your home.