A quick glance at the CQC’s website reveals that over 3,500 care homes in the UK are classified as ‘requiring improvement’ and a further 600 as ‘inadequate’.

Not only is this a big worry for individuals and their families, who are looking for a home, it can be equally concerning for those already in one.

Which? recently delved a little deeper into these figures and found that it was the bigger care groups who tended to perform worst. They also found that individual homes with larger numbers of residents scored significantly worse than smaller sized homes. In total, which? have heard from over 1000 people who have experienced serious problems finding high quality, affordable long-term care, and they are predicting that this situation will deteriorate quite quickly as the demand for places starts to outstrip supply in some areas.

At Care Home Finder we are regularly asked to help individuals and their families to find a suitable care home. In these situations, aside from carrying out a thorough investigation of all the homes we select for consideration, we also take into account the latest CQC reports, whilst bearing in mind that these do go out of date quite quickly.

But given that so many care homes are failing to reach the desired standard (of either ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’), we also find that our Care Review Service is becoming increasingly popular, not only with families of existing residents, but also with solicitors, where they hold professional deputyships for individuals in care.

Our process usually starts with two separate unannounced visits to the care home concerned, where we assess a broad range of aspects pertaining to the provision of care and other related matters, including:

  • Engagement of staff with the resident
  • General health/sense of wellbeing/fitness and weight
  • Activities/hobbies/mixing with other residents/entertainment
  • Standard of menu/food
  • Trips out/interests

At this point, we prepare a detailed report of our findings and share it with the family, or solicitor.

If there are any issues that need addressing, we arrange a meeting with the home’s management to discuss our observations and agree any changes to the structure or delivery of the individual’s care. We regard this stage as a positive one, where arrangements can be quickly put in place to ensure that the best interests of the individual in care can be prioritised.

 

For more information about our Care Review Service, please contact Howard Masters ([email protected]) or Fiona Gilbert ([email protected])

Or telephone 0345 853 0300