Personal recommendations of care homes

Personal recommendations about nursing and residential care homes from residents and relatives are invaluable for self funders.  As a self funder you have a choice about which nursing or residential home you would like to live in and a personal recommendation from a resident or one of their relatives can make all the difference.

Comments such as "My mother has been in this Nursing Home for a year. Without a doubt, it has to be one of the, if not the best in the UK.  Is there any more that I can say, other than it ought to be a model for other similar places and that I recommend it, it's people and it's management unreservedly to anyone thinking of needing such a place".

As a self funder you are unlikely to be offered much support from social services and this is where best-care-home.co.uk provides the information that you need to make an informed decision about the best nursing, residential or dementia home that will meet your needs.

Top tips include;  taking a list of questions with you when visiting your shortlist of care homes, print off best-care-homes 'Questions to ask a care home' and take a look at our 'planning for the move' and the 'checklist of what to take with you'.

Make sure you get some professional financial advice about the best way to pay for your care.  Statistics show that only 17% of self funders seek professional advice and that up to a third of people run out of money and have to turn to social services to pay their fees.  In addition to this, speak to a solicitor about Lasting Power of Attorney - not designating somebody to act on your behalf if you lose mental capacity can seriously impact your personal affairs.

Personal recommendations about care homes are rarer than hen's teeth and yet it seems to be that most people rely on the views of others when they choose a care home. I have even seen statistics that suggest one third of people only see one care home when making their choice - presumably through lack of information about the others.

If you don't have access to unbiased information it is easy to see how the first one you see could become the ultimate destination.

My ethos as I explained in my first blog, is that if you have a problem with an area of care try and find a solution. So I have set up www.best-care-home.co.uk. Initially I simply wanted to provide an online register of the best care homes, with a lot more information that simply a name, address and telephone number - so I encouraged lots of photos, links to CQC reports, videos (more of that later). Anything that will really give a prospective resident and their family a realistic and valuable insight into the home, before they visit it; and I made this free to the care home so that there were no barriers to providing information.

I also encouraged personal recommendations of the homes; and if I believed everything I read in the newspapers, I wasn't expecting to receive very many - how wrong could I be. I have received hundreds in a few months and they are moving and genuine and would really encourage me to visit that home.

So congratulations to the homes and the staff that have received these pesonal recommendations and thank you to the members of the public, residents, health visitors and everybody else that wanted to share their positive experiences with others.