Bristol Care Homes

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Care homes provide personal care and accommodation for people who need extra support in their daily lives and this can include a wide range of support; personal care with eating, washing, dressing, going to the toilet or taking medication. If your loved one is finding it difficult to manage at home on their own and they are feeling lonely and isolated then a Care Home may be the best option for them. Choosing a care home for a relative can be daunting as well as complicated and our article What Makes the Best Care Home will help you understand what you should be looking for, the questions you should ask, considerations and much more when you are making this huge decision.

All care homes offer personal care and accommodation and there are also specialist types of care home that offer additional services for residents with greater care or medical needs. Care homes can be run by private companies, local councils or voluntary organisations and are regulated by the Quality Care Commission (CQC) who is the independent regulator of health and social care in England.

Types of Care and Nursing Homes

A care home provides help with personal care, such as washing, dressing, taking medication and going to the toilet. They may also offer social activities such as day trips or outings.

A nursing home provides personal care as well as assistance from qualified nurses if it is needed. They are also sometimes called care homes with nursing.

A care home offering specialist dementia care has a team of carers who understand dementia and have the skills and experience to ensure the people they are looking after feel comfortable and safe.

Dual-registered care homes look after residents who need both personal and nursing care and often someone who just needs personal care will move into one of these types of care home so they don’t have to move if they later need nursing care.

Is a Care Home the Best Option?

If you’ve never experienced it before then its often a daunting and difficult process to know where to start when looking for a care home for your loved one. There are lots of considerations to think about and we would always advise that if possible you involve your relative with all, or some of the decisions and this way they won’t feel you have taken over their life and made this life-changing decision for them.

In some cases staying at home is the better option for them and there are some things that you can do that will make this easier for them and you, including:

• Adapting their home to make certain activities easier for them
• Getting some care at-home support to help them with things that are becoming difficult. This can be on a regular or ad hoc basis
• Moving into sheltered housing where there is an on-site warden to help if they need it and this enables them to live their life independently, just with a bit more support as well as more social interaction with other residents

You can ask your local council to arrange a care needs assessment and this will assess their day to day needs to see what support can be provided.

Moving into a care home is often the right choice for people and if you find the right one then it can be a positive and life-changing experience for anyone who is struggling on their own and feeling isolated and lonely.

How to Find the Best Care Home

Finding the best care home for your loved one first time round will ensure they are happy, contented and that they won’t need to move again which often causes stress, upset and upheaval for them.

Ask for recommendations from friends, family and your local community as personal recommendations are often the best way to find the best care home for your loved one. You can use local online chats and Facebook pages to ask for recommendations.

You can also, search for care homes via CareHomeAdvisor.

Care Home Advisor is a website which you can use to search for care homes in your area and find out how they are rated by the Care Quality Commission, NHS Choices, Your Care Rating, Food Standards Agency and the Health and Safety Executive.

Care Home Advisor is a website for anyone thinking of entering a care home or looking for one for a friend or relative. It helps you to understand quickly and clearly who the best care providers are so you can make an informed judgement and decision when you start your search. The website only covers nursing and residential care homes for older people (over 65), including dementia care homes. Entry into a home can often be a result of an emergency with the decision needing to be made quickly, so having access to the right facts, all in one place and from independent resources can give you essential and informed advice.

Care Home Advisor

Independent – They are owned by LaingBuisson, the healthcare market intelligence provider that supplies the Office for National Statistics with data on the independent healthcare market. The important part is they are not aligned with any care home provider, they don’t allow advertising by any care home provider on their home page and are endorsed by organisations such as Age UK, Saga and Ipsos MORI who run Your Care Rating.

Impartial – They don’t use TripAdvisor type rankings. They use data from LaingBuisson, the Care Quality Commission, NHS Choices, Your Care Rating, Food Standards Agency and Health & Safety Executive. They do this because judging the quality of care is not as straightforward as judging the quality of a restaurant or hotel and is a complex and emotional process so it focuses on objective and moderated facts and the views of experts in care.

Real-time – Their website is linked directly to the underlying databases so if anything changes the website updates itself immediately ensuring you always have the latest and most accurate view on any care home.

Visiting a Care Home

You should visit a Care Home before you make any commitment and our advice would be to visit a few to start with and then any you like, visit them several times, even spending a day or an afternoon there. There are important things you should check before you visit any care home:

• Ensure the care home provides the level of care your loved one needs now or could need in the future
• Check if the care home currently has any vacancies and if not ask them how long their waiting list is. If there is a waiting list this is often a good sign and shows it is a sought after, care home, however, this does depend on how urgently you need it
• Read the care home’s brochure and have a thorough look at their website before you arrange a visit, this will help you think of the questions you will need to ask
• Call and speak to the home, this will give you a good first impression and an opportunity to ask any questions you may have before you decide if you want to visit them
• Read the most recent inspection report for the home. You can ask the home for it and look for it on the CQC website

The Quality Care Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Their purpose is to make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care by monitoring, inspecting and regulating health and social care services, encouraging care services to improve. They publish what they find which includes ratings to help people choose their care service provider. You can read our Care Quality Commission FAQ’s here.

If you can, always take time to find the right home for your loved one. Visit a couple in your area and have a look around their different social areas and bedrooms, talk to the residents if you can as well as the staff as this will tell you a lot. Before you go you should make a list of questions to make sure you find out everything you need to when you are there. It’s easy to forget things when you are there and preparing beforehand will help you make a well-informed decision. A good and professional care home will want you to spend time with them and will want to ensure you are comfortable with what and how they do things, and if not then this probably isn’t the right care home for your loved one.

First Impressions

First Impressions are really important when you first visit a care home.

• Look to see that the building and gardens are well maintained and if not then this probably isn’t a good sign
• Check there is an easily accessible garden
• Think about how the home felt when you first walked in, did it feel welcoming and inviting
• Is the home in a nice location with good surroundings and local to family members and friends to visit
• Staff welcoming and talking to you when you are walking visiting is a good sign and observe how they interact with the residents
• Take note of the cleanliness of the home and if it smells fresh in all of the areas and rooms
• Is the temperature in the home comfortable in both the social areas and residents rooms
• Look to see how the home and rooms are decorated and if it feels fresh and well maintained

Care Home Staff

Care home staff will often give you a true reflection and insight into the home, they will have a huge influence on the atmosphere of the home, how the residents feel as well as the level of personal care and support the residents receive.

• Welcoming, friendly and interested staff are positive in a care home. Think about how they interacted with you and your loved one when you visited
• Observe how they interact with other residents when you are walking around and how well do they know each of them
• Find out how the staffs shift patterns work and if there is always a manager and or senior member of staff in the home 24 hours a day
• Find out what their ratio of staff to residents is during the day, night and weekends
• Ask if residents can choose if they have a female or male carer
• Ask what training the staff go through, how often and who with. Ask them what training they receive and how regularly. Find out what minimum qualifications and experience the staff and caring team have
• Ask if all carers are trained in caring for residents with dementia, if not, how many and how do their shift patterns work if dementia care is critical to you
• Ask for the care homes staff retention rates and the average staff tenure as this is an indication of how happy staff are working there and will reflect on the care the residents receive and the atmosphere

Meeting Individual Care Needs

Everyone will have different care needs, some will need more than others and peoples care needs change so it is important to find out everything you can about this.