Find Me Good Care

TinaT

Registered User
Sep 27, 2006
7,097
0
Costa Blanca Spain
Time spent researching on the web is important but thorough and detailed inspection by peope inspecting the home for their own relative is the thing which is most important.


Where in this quote do you find the information that I'm saying this is the only site to get information from?

Whether the site's ability to 'sell' advertising in the way described by a poster on this thread means that only good reviews will be posted wouldn't affect my use of the site. I'm a sceptical person and would factor this in anyway..

As I say I'm a sceptical person and was describing the way I, not you, or anyone else, would use the site. Please note the words I used! I always factor scepticism whether into good or bad reports as would anyone who has used sites such as Trip Advisor which you quote in your posts.



At least it is a starting point to work from and after all, this would be part of research BEFORE visiting and assessing any care home for yourself. Foot slogging and taking enough time to visit a home is the only way in my opinion to properly assess how good a care home is.


I am not going into details of domicilliary care as I really don't know what would be the best way to approach a web search for such services. Again in my opinion, and my opinion only, anywhere that gives me somewhere to start is better than not having any start at all.

TinaT
 
Last edited:

Saffie

Registered User
Mar 26, 2011
22,513
0
Near Southampton
Carewatcher - I have seen your profile - have you ever sought care for a relative? I really can't see what all the fuss is about this site - it's just another stepping stone - but not the only one - to helping people find that care. Goodness knows we need all the help we can get - I did anyway!
 

carewatcher

Registered User
Oct 30, 2012
11
0
The site is selling advert space to cover its costs. I agree with Tina 100 %.

I`m sure that SCIE will be requesting feedback as it is a new site. By the way I have nothing to do with this site and as said before I posted it for information purposes only.


carewatcher:

Let's get this clear. I have it in writing from SCIE that they are NOT allowing comments and reviews on unenhanced listings... that's a fact. Not what you *think* SCIE *might* be doing.
However, it's just part of the shortcomings of the site which includes returning searches for care providers that appear to push paid for listings to the top of the search return.


Danny:
In my view the more easy read resources out there the better.


carewatcher:
Couldn't agree more.... as long as they are accurate, unbiased and contain quality information.... something this site does not do!


Danny:
As a provider of services I haven`t decided as yet whether to put an enhanced listing on. What is good about this site is that sole traders and individual people can put a listing on as well which would help people who have direct payments or personal budgets.

Carewatcher:
Oh do behave. You're referring to unregulated care (ie, not CQC registered) which other sites also *allow*.

Asw a provider os "services" you should see the disparity, the bias and the ultimate unworkable data and information that this site is giving our in care provider searches.
The system is nothing short of a disgrace and has nothing to do whatsoever with the government thrust and ethos of getting good quality information out into the public arena. This site is anything but that.
It's a real shame you don't take the information given to you with the knowledge you have actually been advised of shortcomings and failings in a heavily promoted website involved in social care.
Worse, SCIE are a Charity!!! ...and part publicly funded....!
Interesting why you would consider an enhanced listing....? If you are a (regulated)care provider you'll be on their (CQC derived) list anyway... choosing to pay them ( for what?) must have placed a seed of thought in your mind as to what you get for your 'investment'.....


Danny:
Food for thought:)

carewatcher
Indeed. The thought is.... should I support a site that claims to assist people (service users) with quality information but actually gives out biased, incomplete information that prevents you from making a clear informed judgement about a care provider?


carewatcher
 

carewatcher

Registered User
Oct 30, 2012
11
0
A bit of backgound.


You mean PR, of course.

Look, this site has been promoted heavily...it doesn't put right the serious shortcomings and failings as a care guide for people/service users to actually find out clear, accurate, unbiased and quality information about care providers.

carewatcher
 
Last edited by a moderator:

carewatcher

Registered User
Oct 30, 2012
11
0
Carewatcher - I have seen your profile - have you ever sought care for a relative? I really can't see what all the fuss is about this site - it's just another stepping stone - but not the only one - to helping people find that care. Goodness knows we need all the help we can get - I did anyway!


Saffie...
I have, like many people, been both inside and outside of professional social care. Therefore, I have had to do what you are asking.
However, these are all deflections away from the nonsensical approach this site is taking in getting care provision information out to the public.
I've already listed other care guides that do NOT offer bias and limited information or promote paid for advertisers above non paying listings.
We are actually all saying the same thing...except.. I am warning you about this particular site and the way it works and the subsequent biased information it produces..this is something EVERYONE seeking care should know about, be aware of and, in my view, use sites that give the same information (without the bias and lack of full reviews) with links to CQC etc and are simple and easy to understand.
I'm not sure why people here are actually defending this site...it IS indefensable as a care guide site.

Finally, I am not involved in any way, shape or form with ANY care guide site.... but I am a social care professsional and my only concern in all of this is to make people aware that there are better care guides out there, this care guide is flawed (for some, and more, of the reasons I've mentioned) and I am interested in making sure vulnerable people, particularly vulnerable adults, are not exposed to undue risks under the great new world of personalisation.... that's all.
MY sincere hope is that this site either sorts out the failings ( a releatively simple task...) or it fails to other sites offering similar, but better unbiased, information in the long run.
These types of sites, in my opinion and as a social care profiesssional, should not be patronised in the form they are in. Change the nonsensical review system on paid for enhanced listings, allow advanced search criteria on non paid for listings and prevent paid for listings appearing at the top of a search return from a postcode and we might have a site worthy of consideration. At the moment it is utterly poor and unusable (...as a care guide)

carewatcher
 

JPG1

Account Closed
Jul 16, 2008
3,391
0
I have my concerns about this thread, and also about this new website.

The thread has almost turned into a discussion/dispute between a 'social care provider' (and I'm not talking about your day centres, Danny/Angela) and a 'social care professional' (whatever that may mean). Nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if interests were declared in full, and I know you said you have not yet opted for the 'enhanced listing' but you may do eventually.

Should the thread perhaps be in the 'Professionals' section of the forum, with interests declared?

Yes, the website provides a link to the CQC once you've found whatever you may be interested in, but as the CQC website no longer holds reports of many previous inspections, it will still only provide the most recent inspection reports. Progress or otherwise is difficult to follow. Providing a simple link to information that's already available is not enough to persuade me about the 'enhanced paid-for listing with reviews'. Yet! But I'm willing to change my mind.

This website was only launched a week ago, and it's early days, so at this stage it's more or less a telephone directory. It's fairly easy to navigate, and the articles that I've read (only a couple, plucked at random) are easy to read too. So are all Age UK leaflets.

SCIE is government funded. I would prefer the funding for this website also to come from government rather than via ads from private care providers. That's the bit I'm not too keen on - because 'reviews' will only be available for those care providers able and willing to pay for the 'enhanced listing'. In other words, for those who pay the fee to advertise their services. Not too keen on that. All those listed should be able to be 'reviewed'.

I've got my doubts about the policing of those reviews too. Will all reviews be published, warts and all - or will there be some kind of selection by the care providers? Haven't looked for that info, so it may already be on the website.

What if the CQC publishes a very bad inspection report? Will the website still be providing the enhanced listing, in return for a fee? Will it flag up a very bad inspection report, as a warning to those who might otherwise miss it. How will the advertising revenue be affected?

Supposing the CQC allowed the same 'paid for enhanced advertising' by care providers? Would that be acceptable?

Don't know - just thinking aloud here. I've never been a fan of the CQC, or of its former creation CSCIE. I may be even less a fan of what could turn out to be a care provider's advertising website, but disguised.

Danny/Angela, I know you asked previously my opinion of this website and I decided not to reply then, as recent events have taken over and I've only just found the time to look at it.
 

danny

Registered User
Sep 9, 2009
3,342
0
cornwall/real name is Angela
Hi JPG1, I don`t fully understand your post but the mods put this thread in this section because it is a resource. I honestly found the site interesting and helpful and thought others may too.Sometimes people do not have ulterior motives but such is the climate of care at the moment that shadows of doubt are ever increasing and that is such a shame.
 

Jancis

Registered User
Jun 30, 2010
2,567
0
70
Hampshire
But this is NOT a good site to "start looking" for the reasons I have explained.
This site has such serious fasilings and shortcomings as a *care Guide* for it to be biased and of little use.
There are others (incluing, very soon to be, a NHS site with a care guide) :

bettercareguide.org

goodcareguide.co.uk


for example that do not give out biased information and allow useful comments and reviews on care providers and their services.
The site you posted DOES not do that AND bias's towards paid for advertisers who take out enhanced listings.
It is important that as many people as possible learn about and understand that the care provider information given out from this site is not accurate, not unbaised and is unable to give you other service users feedback about the service. To this end, the site is very pooor and of poor quality... let alone the dangers of allowing poor care providers to avoid having their service reviewed or commented on, on this site.
Do not use it for searching for care provision or researching good information about care providers... you will not get it.

carewatcher

This is a very odd debate we're having tonight, but found it interesting as I too was interested in a new review website a week or so ago that another member posted www.carehomeadvisor.com. It's too new to be useful at the moment, however.

Carewatcher - I don't like the two sites you recommend above as they don't reveal their provenance without registering (no readily available 'about us' information like on the site Danny helpully suggested). Why is that do you think?

All websites cost money (including this forum). Significant investments in fact. Someone has to sponsor them. Fact of life.
 

SerenaS

Staff Member
Apr 7, 2011
13,739
0
London
Hello everyone,

We've been contacted by the team who have developed Find Me Good Care at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). They are happy to answer questions or hear your comments.

To ask the team questions or pass on your comments, please contact the Find Me Good Care team by visiting the website: http://www.findmegoodcare.co.uk/contact-us

Thanks :)
 
Last edited:

piedwarbler

Registered User
Aug 3, 2010
7,189
0
South Ribble
I will add my story to the above thread. I contacted SCIE because I thought the web site sounded like a good idea. I spoke to a researcher by phone who said she would write up the story of my experiences of "finding good care" and then would I mind if she gave them to local media, and I would be available to talk to local media about how I "found good care"? Ok, I said, so she interviewed me about Mum and her journey through care. Mum had home care for years and then, as a lot of TPers will know, she went through three care homes before I finally found an okay one, 4th time lucky.

It took me an hour to go through all the different experiences Mum had had, and the reasons why I moved her from the various homes, which involved bullying and neglect. I could tell the researcher was starting to sound depressed on the other end of the phone, and she started saying things like, "But you are happy now, right?"

She said she would type up my story and e mail me, but that was the last I heard!

I have concluded that Mum's story could not be used as an example of "finding good care" and in fact is a salutary tale of how HARD it is to find anything approaching good care in the current system of care homes being run in a profit making way.

I haven't looked at the web site, but I do feel my experience isn't the sort of Pollyanna story that the researcher was hoping I would tell her. Therefore, I would not trust this website. If they are ignoring stories like my mum's, then how can they be giving people an accurate view of the quality of social care today?:(
 

grove

Registered User
Aug 24, 2010
7,714
0
North Yorkshire
Hello Danny , Pied & Everybody , Only found out about FMGCare Website not via T P but reading about it in a Newspaper the other day :) ...... have had problems:mad: joining the Forum but hope fully that will be sorted out soon !


Pied agree with what you said & it should NOT be all about the 5 ****** C & N Homes ( or any other sort of Care for that matter ) They should also give a proper accurate view of all the pitfalls as well as the good when looking for Care for your loved one ....... However do like :) the "Handy Tip " box on the looking for care page ( it helps you in not rushing into things )


Love Grove x x
 

PeggySmith

Registered User
Apr 16, 2012
1,687
0
BANES
Hmm. Missed this thread as I wasn't thinking about care homes at the time. Now I am and I rejected FMG early on as very few local care homes are listed. Now I know why:D