10 tips for choosing a care home

With 16,000 care homes in the UK, choosing the right one for you can be an overwhelming task. You want to find a care home where you are happy to live but that also provides the care and support that you need.

Here are ten tips for choosing a care home.

Determine what kind of care you’re looking for

If you are looking at care homes, it is likely (though not essential) that you need support with day to day living and/or care for your medical needs. For this reason, it’s important to know what type of care you need so that you can look for care homes that provide it.

Types of care can include:

• Residential care – when you live in the care home full-time.
• Personal care – support with washing, dressing, going to the toilet, eating and drinking.
• Nursing care – care that must be provided by a registered nurse.
• Respite care – a temporary stay, often used when the person’s usual carer is away or needs a break.
• Convalescence care – support with recovery after an illness or stay in hospital.
• Dementia care – for people who live with dementia.
• Mental health care – care for a mental health condition.
• Bariatric care – care for those who weigh over 25 stone, often requiring particular equipment.
• Palliative care – for people who have been diagnosed with a terminal or life-limiting illness.
• End of life care – for people thought to be in the final months of their lives.

Once you have established what kind of care you need, you can search for care homes offering it on carehome.co.uk.

To find out exactly what sort of care you’re looking for is, request a care needs assessment. This can assess exactly what sort of care would best help you.

Care needs assessments can be carried out by your local authority or a care home.

Paulina Frisby, runs the free care helpline at carehome.co.uk. She advises: “When having the assessment done, be open and honest with the assessor. Tell them everything that is going on, even if it may seem insignificant. Let them know all of your expectations and your wishes for care. Take your time and ask as many questions as possible.”

Find out more about how to arrange and prepare for a care needs assessment.

Assess how you’ll pay for your care

A deciding factor in which care homes you can choose from will be which you can afford. If you have over a certain amount in capital and assets, you will have to fund your care yourself. If you have under that amount, your care will be funded by the local authority.

You will need to have a financial means test. This is when the local authority assesses how much money you have and whether you qualify for local authority funding.

Find out more about care funding in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Please note that if you live in Scotland, you do not have to pay for personal or nursing care, but you will have to pay for the accommodation costs.

Find out if you’re eligible for any additional benefits

If you need care, it’s possible your needs have changed and that you may now be eligible for benefits that you weren’t previously.

However moving into a care home may mean that you are no longer eligible for benefits that you currently receive.

More information on benefits you can claim in a care home.

When the NHS pays for some or all of your care

• If you need nursing care, you may be able to have the nursing care part of your fees paid for by the NHS. This is through NHS-funded nursing care.
• If you live in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, and have an ongoing physical or mental health condition, you may be eligible for NHS Continuing Healthcare funding. You will need to be assessed and will be eligible if you are considered to have a ‘primary health need’. 

Plan your budget

It’s really important to know exactly how much you can afford each month.

Take into account that care home fees do tend to rise a little each year; also consider that your needs may change, making your fees higher in the future.

A difficulty in budgeting for a care home is that you don’t really know how long you will need it for. Some care homes require you to prove that you will be able to pay the fees for a certain amount of time, such as the next four years.

If you are a home-owner, there are things you can do to free up more money for your care, such as renting out your home, setting up a Deferred Payment Agreement or releasing equity on it.

If you cannot afford your care home of choice, it is possible for a third-party, such as a friend or relative, to pay a top-up fee to make up the difference.

Other factors to consider

As well as care and price, there are other factors you’ll need to consider when choosing a care home to ensure that you’ll be able to live the lifestyle you want.

Additional factors you might want to consider include:

• Location – do you want to stay in your current community, be close to family or move somewhere completely different, like by the sea?
• Faith and religion – would you prefer to live in a care home that is dedicated to your faith?
• Are you a member of the LGBTQ+ community and how will a care home support you?
• Will you be able to continue to attend current social activities or hobbies?
• Are you in a couple and can they accommodate both of you?
• Do you have a pet that you want to bring with you?
• Do you need a care home that can support you with a mental health condition or addiction?

It’s a good idea to create a checklist of what you’re looking for to use in your search.

We have a handy one that you can use or glean inspiration from: Checklist (carehome.co.uk)

Call our care helpline

Carehome.co.uk has a dedicated care help team. They offer free, one-to-one support in your search for a care home, and can create a shortlist for you of homes that meet your criteria.

Call 01488 501103 to speak to one of the team. The line is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm (standard call charges apply).

Paulina Frisby, Care Help Team leader, adds: “The Care Help Team here at carehome.co.uk understand that there are numerous factors to consider when choosing a care home. Each care seeker’s circumstances will be different and individual to their own needs and requirements.

“As part of our ongoing training, the care help team regularly visits care homes so we can give the best possible recommendations to our care seekers.”

Book tours of potential homes

You cannot get a real feel of a care home without visiting it. Just as you wouldn’t buy a house without viewing it, a care home is where you’ll live so it’s really important to look around several options.

Book tours to view care homes you’re interested in and have an idea of what you’re looking for before you go.

On a tour, it’s recommended that you:

• Take a list of questions you want to find out about, so you don’t forget them
• Speak to the staff and residents
• Arrange the care assessment
• Get a copy of the home’s contract
• Listen to your intuition

Kerry Wood, Care Help Team member at carehome.co.uk, says: “My tip would be to follow your heart and gut! Trust your senses; sight, smell, touch, hear and taste your first impressions.

“Look at the cleanliness of the home and the smells coming from it, touch the furniture and furnishings. Listen to the human interactions; are they lively, loving and positive? Try the food and drink. Does the atmosphere feel like home?

“I always pay particular attention to the interaction between the carers and the residents. Do the carers address the residents by their name? Do the carers allow the residents to be as independent as possible, while being there to help should they need to?

“Ask how long they have worked there and do they enjoy their job – a happy workforce results in happy and content residents.”

Book a respite stay

Respite stays are temporary stays in care homes. They are a great way to get a feel of what your life would be like in a care home, without having to commit to moving in permanently if it’s not for you.

If you can afford it, you can even have respite stays in more than one care home to find the one that feels right for you.

The fees for a respite stay tend to be higher than if you were a permanent resident, so remember you will not need to pay as much if you move in.

Look at inspection ratings and reviews

Every care home in the UK must be registered with its country’s regulatory body.

These are:

• England: Care Quality Commission
• Scotland: Care Inspectorate
• Wales: Care Inspectorate Wales
• Northern Ireland: Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority

These bodies carry out inspections on care homes to assess the quality of their service. Looking at the inspection reports (which are all available online) of care homes that you are considering can be useful.

Paulina Frisby, Care Help Team leader at carehome.co.uk, says: “Read the latest regulatory report to identify if any issues were flagged. Take notes of any questions you would like to ask about their latest report to ask the care home manager what processes they have put in place to improve.”

You can also look at the care home’s reviews on carehome.co.uk. Each care home gets a review score, so the higher the review score, the better feedback the home has had from residents and their loved ones.

Set up a Power of Attorney

Unfortunately, it is possible that there may come a day when you are assessed as not having the mental capacity to choose your care home yourself. This is when you are unable to understand and use information needed to make the decision, often due to a condition like dementia.

A Lasting Power of Attorney is when you legally appoint somebody to make important decisions for you, should you ever lose capacity to do so yourself. Appointing an Attorney and involving them in your search for a care home, even if you won’t be moving in for a long time yet, is a good way to ensure that you get the care home you want, as well as making it easier for loved ones to know what to do for the best.

You can decide to have your Power of Attorney come into force straight away or only at a time, if it comes, that you are ever assessed as lacking the mental capacity to make decisions for yourself.

There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney – one for decisions about your health and welfare and one for property and financial matters. You can choose a different person for each of these or have one person for both.

You can also appoint more than one person for each, for example, if you have two adult children, you can give them both Lasting Power of Attorney for both Health and Welfare and Property and Financial Affairs.

In this case, you can also choose if both Attorneys need to sign off on documents or if they can each make decisions independently.