Home advice

It’s all about planning

For many people the need to find a care home tends to be rather rushed, possibly due to a sudden illness, a fall or some other unplanned event. As a result, many people will say that they would like to have taken longer to find the right home but didn’t get a chance.

We never know what challenges or difficulties we may face in the future and we would always recommend some advance planning and then you can be better prepared for whatever occurs and have a much clearer idea of the homes you like and how you will pay for the care.

Choosing a home

It will always be difficult to know where to start but we would suggest that ‘word of mouth’ can be very informative. Your friends and relatives may well know somebody who can give you a recommendation. It is also worth discussing with your GP since they can help advise on the level of care needed e.g. nursing or residential. We would also recommend contacting your local social services since they have full knowledge of all of the homes in your area.

None of these care professionals can recommend a specific home but in our experience they tend to be very helpful in guiding your choice.

We then suggest visiting the home or homes recommended and your first impressions will always be very important. Naturally, you will probably find that there is a lot of information to try and understand and just as many questions you should try and remember to ask. In order to help, we have produced a short list of ‘Questions and Prompts’ which will hopefully help ensure you don’t miss an important point.

Download Questions and Prompts.

Paying for a home

The means by which your care home fees are paid can be a little complicated and your personal financial status will largely determine who pays what. The fee in a nursing home has three elements to it:

Nursing Care: Provided by a Registered Nurse
Personal Care: Help with dressing, washing, eating etc. is provided by a Carer
Accommodation: Meals, laundry, heating, lighting etc.

Depending upon your personal circumstances, the Local Authority may pay some of your costs of care but this will all be based upon your wealth, taking account of your assets, pensions, benefits etc. In order to help you try and assess your financial status and therefore possible entitlement to assistance we have always referred people to the Care Aware Funding Flow Chart.

Care Aware are a non-profit making public information and advisory service specialising in care funding advice. In addition, we recommend contacting your local social services team who are well placed to help explain the complexities of care funding, as are the Managers of our homes.

You may also find it useful to contact the
following organisation:

Help the Aged and Age Concern are now Age UK.

Questions and Prompts