1st May 2015

How to find the best care home - Step 1

Getting started.

Planning ahead in order to find the right care home is crucial and will allow you to make an informed choice.

Talk to your relative and the rest of the family to discuss the best location for a home, bear in mind where friends and relatives live.
Ensure that the homes you are looking at meet the medical needs of your relative, for example they offer nursing or dementia care if required.
Discuss how you will fund the home, speak to a specialist care fees advisor with the SOLLA accreditation. Ensure you have spoken to a solicitor concerning Lasting Power of Attorney.

Websites to visit when you are looking for a care home;

www.carehome.co.uk for a list of care homes in England.
www.cqc.org.uk to read the reports from the Care Quality Commission who regulate care in England.

At Chosen with Care we want to inform families, before there is a crisis, about the issues that need to be considered when you are looking for a care home. At a recent care event that we organised, we talked about everything to do with care. At the event we spoke to a lovely couple and received this testimonial - 'My Mum spoke to me for quite a while on Sunday, to say how impressed she had been and how glad they were they had gone along. Both my Nanna and Grandma had dementia before they died and my Uncle has it now. They did not know about the affect small strokes have on developing Dementia and following the advice they received, my Dad is going to attend his doctors and demand an MRI scan, as he had a stroke about a year ago. Thank you from myself as well, this has been really helpfully for my parents.' Jonathan H.