- Signature at Reigate Grange talks through the key steps for prospective residents, relatives and loved ones to take when transitioning to a care home.
Choosing where, when and how to place yourself or a relative into a care home can at first seem an overwhelming process.
Growing demand for care home beds across the country means an ever-increasing number of us will be transitioning to a care home and feel a sense of pressure to get the decision right to ensure the transition is as smooth as possible.
In this piece, Signature at Reigate Grange, a luxury care home in Surrey, provides a guide for you on how to best navigate this process and successful transition to a care home.
- Identify what matters to you?
Choosing a care setting means deciding where you or a loved one should set up home. This is a big step to take and should not be underestimated or rushed; taking time to fully consider what you are looking for from a care home in the first instance makes the decision easier.
This will see you move you or a loved one to a care home. Similar to when you are moving house, you should first take the time to draw up a list of the basic criteria you or a loved one are seeking from a care home.
This maximises your chances of hitting the key long-term objective, ensuring the care home you select delivers the care you or a loved one needs and best supports your wellbeing and that of your relatives and loved ones.
To help pinpoint the areas that matter to you, here are some key considerations:
- ‘Location, Location, Location’: Whilst moving into a care home can provide a big lifestyle change for a resident, it should not change the basis of their relationship with their relatives and loved ones. Visits to see a resident in a care home are an important way to ensure they feel at home and remain connected with the people that matter to them. Where the care home is placed and how easy it is to reach is therefore critical.
Some good questions to ask yourself here include; are there multiple methods of reaching the care home, such as by car, public transport or walking? Can the care home be reached quickly should you want to visit at short notice, either by choice or at the care home’s request to support your relative?
- Why do I need a care home: Your care needs, or those of a loved one, will have likely driven the decision to move from their current home to a care home. Finding a care home which best meets those needs is crucial, and it is important you fully understand those care needs and the type of care homes available.
Here is a list of the types of care homes which private companies, local authorities or voluntary organisations can offer:
- Residential Care Homes: Residents here receive personal care, which includes washing, dressing, support with medication and going to the toilet. Whilst residential care homes provide nursing care; they are designed for residents who do not normally need specialist nursing care. Residential care homes will also typically offer activities programmes, along with day trips and outings outside of the home.
- Care homes with dementia care: These are care homes which specialise in ensuring people with dementia feel comfortable and safe.
- Nursing Homes: Nursing homes provide care for residents who will struggle significantly with daily life or have various medical conditions and therefore require regular and specialist treatment from registered nurses. Some nursing homes will make clear they specialise in supporting residents living with a specific condition. These examples may include severe physical disabilities, severe learning disabilities, dementia, cancer or mental illness.
- Dual-registered care homes: These homes will accept residents who need both personal care and nursing care. The way in which they are set up means that someone who moves in requiring personal care but whose care needs latterly evolves into needing nursing care would not have to change homes.
- Do your due diligence
Once you have drawn up your care home criteria, along with a full understanding of what you need from your care home, you should then start to scope out the care homes which could potentially meet your needs.
To help you decide which care homes you would like to visit, it is important you carry out some basic background checks to find out what those connected to the home are saying. There are a number of ways to do this.
- Checking out online reviews: Reading reviews penned by residents, relatives, and even staff working within a home can really help you to paint a picture of life within the care home. Most care homes will have Google pages where reviews are left, which can be a useful port of call. Carehome.co.uk is the leading review website, which lists close to 17,000 care homes across the country and has nearly a quarter of a million reviews. It is independent and performs a number of checks to ensure the reviews left are fair and accurate.
- Reviewing a care home’s vacancies: Ensuring yourself or a loved one receive the care you need has a greater chance of being achieved in a home which is staffed with consistent care teams. The most effective way to check this out is to find out how many vacancies the care home has. If it has a high number of vacancies, the chances are they may use staff from an agency to plug the gaps, and the staff will rotate on a regular basis.
- Review the care home’s latest Care Quality Commission report: All care homes are reviewed by a regulator, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and social care in England. Inspectors visit each care home and rate each one in five areas, along with an overall rating on a four-point scale. Outstanding, Good, Requires Improvement, Inadequate.
- Speaking to the care home’s manager: Finally, before you begin visiting the care home, do ensure you read the home’s brochure or visit their website, and call or email the home to speak to the care team or General Manager. This will help you to further build up a profile of the home and its environment to ensure it could potentially provide the care you or a loved one need.
- Making the most of your visits ahead of your decision
Having arranged your visit to the care homes, which could potentially fit the bill, it is important you now know the things to look out for when you are in the care home.
Matching your requirements identified in the first stage of your research, here is a checklist of things to cover in your visit
- Checking how staff interact with residents
- Clarifying how the care home can meet your or a loved one’s care needs
- Day-to-day considerations
- Gaining an understanding of the food and beverage offering within the care home
- Exploring the home’s social life and activities programme
- Enquiring about the home’s visiting policy
- Establishing the fees the home charges and how the fees are paid.
- Understanding how to provide feedback and its complaints procedure