As with choosing any new home, there are a few key factors to consider when it comes to choosing the right care home. Decisions about care homes are often taken at very little notice, although it is best to start to think about the choices available and what to look for when there is plenty of time to compare the different options available.
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Types of care available
When it comes to choosing the right care home, there are different types available. Some are residential, offering personal care that can include help with washing, taking medication, eating and going to the toilet, while others offer nursing care and have qualified nurses on duty at all times. The staff are often trained in specialist areas to help with different illnesses or disabilities, such as dementia.
Some homes offer both personal and nursing care. This can be useful for residents whose condition may deteriorate over time, as the level of care can be changed without having to move to a different home.
For some, the time to move into a care home might not be quite right. There are also options to have a live-in carer in their home with them so that they can stay in familiar surroundings.
The questions to consider
There are a number of questions to be answered when choosing a care home. Age UK has a useful checklist available with a number of points that you might like to consider.
It is important to work out what level of assistance will be needed, in which area the home should be, the level of fees the care incurs, and whether there are vacancies in the preferred home. It may be that you anticipate the level of care changing as time goes on, in which case you need to consider whether the care home could provide for future situations.
It may be that moving into a home might be a move that will take place in the future and you might like to consider arranging live in care through a service such as https://www.liveincare.com/.
Once you have a checklist and know what to look for, you can arrange to visit care homes and ask the questions that are most important to you to help you make this important decision.