Making your choice

Regardless of whether you are funding your own care, or getting support with funding from Social Services or the Primary Care Trust, you are entitled to choose your care home.

If you choose a care home that costs more money than Social Services are prepared to contribute to, then you can add to their contribution to make up the short fall in fees, this is called a third party top-up. It is therefore worth enquiring with Social Services as the level of funding that they will contribute to, in order that you know the likely short falls that you will need to find before looking at Care Homes to ensure that you visit homes in the appropriate pricing bracket. Once you are aware of the Social Services contribution, you can start looking for suitable homes immediately.

If your financial circumstances mean that you are Funding your Own Care:

You can start looking at suitable home immediately, and do not need to contact Social Services, although they are still there to support you should you wish, you can find most care homes of care homes with nursing advertised in the Yellow Pages or via internet search directories etc or in “Our Homes” section on this website.

It is always a good idea to visit as many homes as possible, so that you can appreciate the realms of the choice on offer and available within your area.

If you will be paying for the care home's fees yourself, you can start to contact homes directly. We recommend you visit as many homes as possible to see for yourself the different types of homes available.

When looking around care homes it is helpful to write down any questions that you may have in advance of visiting the homes in order that you remember when there all the things that you think are most important, and also so that you can be sure to compare homes on a like for like basis – whilst visiting the home, write down the answers to each of your questions so that when you get home you can remember each of those aspects that you have deemed important against each of the homes visited.

We have prepared a questionnaire for you to download which may provide some practical pointers:

Download the Questionnaire here

Once you have found a home you like, the home will then offer to make an assessment of your needs, so that they can be sure they can offer you the right kind of care.

Once an assessment has been undertaken, the care home in question should write to you outlining the fact that they can meet your needs, and detailing the weekly costs for this.