Any Comments on Care Homes?

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rhfurniture

Registered User
Mar 13, 2008
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Hi,
I am new to this forum and currently looking for a new care home for my Mother, as the place she is in, while doing a first rate job, do not have the resources to cope with her behaviour. She is fairly far down the Dementia track, and seems to do well when given full time one to one attention, but goes off the rails, attacking staff and residents as soon as she feels ignored.
I am currently looking at the *named removed* care home in Gloucestershire. They look very good, with full dementia care support, and Mother's Doctor thinks the world of them. I have "insider" reports (a relative is a student nurse who'se collegues have done placements there) that are also very good. Has anyone had any bad experiences with them? I want to go into this with my eyes wide open, as it is a bit of a distance from where I and she are currently living.

TIA,

R.
 
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Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
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near London
Hi rhfurniture,

Welcome to Talking Point.

I know it is natural to ask questions about care homes but please read the following:

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/talkin...ocuments_info.php?categoryID=12&documentID=47

Primarily this:
"Where you have had good or bad experience of health services such as NHS facilities, medical staff, care homes - please do not name the organisations or individual staff on the forum.

etc.
"

If members have something they wish to say on the subject, they can send you a private message.

It is also worth looking at http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/talkin...ocuments_info.php?categoryID=12&documentID=46

Good luck in your searches.

My own experience is that, while I have a very good story indeed to tell about my Jan's care home [not run by the company you mentioned] - when I visited an Alzheimer's Society branch 50 miles away, near a different home run by the same company, they thought their local home was awful. So every home is different, depending on funding, management and staffing - and of course the residents themselves.

Which is why it is dangerous to make generalisations.
 

TinaT

Registered User
Sep 27, 2006
7,097
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Costa Blanca Spain
CSCI reports

I've just posted on the 'Someone else's glasses post' before I read this post. So, forgive me but I'm repeating it here as I think it is a fair comment for this post.........

When looking for a care home, we have to take into account the current needs of our loved one; space in public areas for my husband, for someone else a ground floor bedroom. Tips and hints can only go so far in helping us to decided which home is the best we can hope for.

In the past months of looking for a care home/EMI home I have found that the CSCI reports have not helped me. They have not provided me with the standardisation of quality in their reports which I expected when I first visited their site. Reports are patchy, in that they do not do a full inspection on each visit. The standards on which they base their inspect are low and fall well below the standards I would have expected and needed. This is a public body on which, I felt, I could rely and after my own visits to care homes, I feel very let down by the CSCI.

There are far too many homes which are terribly understaffed, not enough thought gone into planning the space available within the care home: old ladies sat in a circle with their back to the wall in a room with a tv switched on, an offensive and unacceptable smell of urine pervading everywhere - in summary - a lower level of care than I could reasonably expect in view of the fees charged, leaving me with with the sense that profit is paramount in the way homes are managed.


All of the above leave me angry and frustrated as, usually in social care, the cry is 'There isn't enough money for good quality care'. I feel that the fees which are charged, especially in care homes run by large, private corporations, is more than adequate to provide what is needed.

The problem, as I percieve it, is a lack of willpower by our Governement and our society in general. Many new initiatives are in the air at this present time, all of them purport to bring in a 'new deal' for our sick, frail and elderly population and I applaud what I think, is a genuine push to improve services.

No where in this new package do I see a move where the Government set down standards of care in residential care which reflect what we as a modern society expect, together with an official Government run inspection process which enforces this.

xxTinaT
 

CYN

Registered User
Jan 4, 2008
702
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east sussex
feed back

Dear rhfurniture.
I have sent you a pm regarding *name removed* as recommended by Bruce.

It is my story regarding *name removed* and i think you will find it illuminating:eek:

Cynthia x x
 
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Sandy

Registered User
Mar 23, 2005
6,847
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Dear rhfurniture,

I should have also put a link in to the Alzheimer's Society's fact sheet on how to choose a care home as it covers a number of important points:

http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/factsheet/476

As you are looking for a new home that is more able to offer dementia-centred care, you probably have a much better idea of what you're looking for in a care home than someone who is just starting out down this winding road.

Having recommendations from others, such as your mother's doctor and your relative the student nurse, must also be helpful additions to your own first-hand observations.

As for the CSCI reports, I would treat them as another source of data and see how well they agree with your own observations and the reports of others. It's worth looking at the dates of the reports and whether the inspection was scheduled or unannounced and then reading the detailed results of the standards which were inspected.

I can't speak to all the points that TinaT raised in her post. My understanding of the CSCI is that they are responsible for making sure that registered care homes meet the legal requirements and are measured against the national minimum standards set by the government (http://www.csci.org.uk/about_us/registering_and_inspecting.aspx).

The CSCI does acknowledge that there are differing levels of quality between care homes (http://www.csci.org.uk/choose_and_find_care/get_good_care/good_and_bad_care.aspx)
but they see their job, via the inspection process, to "Improve services and stamp out bad practice".

Good luck in finding a more suitable home for your mother - you are certainly being as thorough and conscientious as possible.

Take care,

Sandy
 

rhfurniture

Registered User
Mar 13, 2008
2
0
Thanks everone.
Bruce, I apologise for being a bit direct, and maybe I should have solicited PM's to be clear. Unfortunately I did not read the guidelines , though in retrospect, I can quite understand the need for them.
The CSCI documents are my only written source of information, and while reliable in their own right, and probably as fair as can be expected, they are not very comprehensive and full of "form" at first glance. Also a home that "tries hard" at inspections may become chaotic and understaffed in between, and the only people that can really tell us, well, just cannot. I think that by luck, I have stumbled upon possibly the best source - student nurses on placement. Does anyone know if "which" has done anything worth reading on the subject? Maybe Lonely Planet should do a "Good Dementia Homes Guide" :)
Anyway, I accept that it is the individual home that counts, and will try to keep my eyes as open as I can when I go look tommorow. I should add that within a 20 mile radius, my choice of available suitable places now seems to be down to one. Thanks again for the replies.

R.
 
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