Care at home is the future for elderly care
A new report suggests home care services offer higher standards for safety and quality of life.
Better care at home
New research published by our partners, The Live-In Care Hub, a coalition of leading home care providers, reveals that institutionalised care in the UK is broken. The nationwide study surveyed more than a thousand care homes and nursing homes to offer a picture of what life in a care home looks like in comparison to alternative care options.
The report’s key findings look at the safety and wellbeing of those in institutionalised care settings and compares the standard of care and quality of life with those who enjoy the significant benefits of receiving care at home. The report concentrated on live-in care but Christies Care’s own independent research shows that hourly home care follows exactly the same pattern.
Tragically, care homes have been disproportionately affected by Covid:19. People living in care homes are at higher risk of contracting and dying from Coronavirus than people of a similar age living in the community.
Infection control and social distancing are much harder to manage in a care home setting and the difficulty in preventing transmission has meant many care home residents have had to endure heartbreaking restrictions. Care home residents have been isolated in their rooms to avoid the high-risk spread of infection, unable to see family or friends for months during the height of the pandemic.
As these problems have worsened and the number of Covid-related deaths has continued to rise in care homes, many people have chosen to remove their loved ones from care homes arranging care at home services instead which offer the best choice to improve the quality of life for elderly and vulnerable people.
For many people this has been a life-saving decision. Receiving care and support at home, either with around-the-clock, live-in care or regular home visits, is proven to have significant benefits for physical and mental health.
The Hub’s Better At Home report calls for the government to make person-centred home care a more visible and feasible option for all families considering different types of care for a loved one.
Read a Christies Carer's case study
Live-in and home care visit core services include:
- help with mobility and safety
- personal care
- medication management
- shopping, cooking, light housekeeping, pet care, domestic admin
- accompaniment to appointments, day centres and trips out
- emotional support and companionship
For information on how our home care services can help you:
Advice on planning and paying for care
As members of the Live-in Care Hub we strongly recommend that you plan ahead and take advice, ideally from a SOLLA (Society of Later Life Advisors) accredited Independent Financial Advisor to understand the best care option to suit your circumstances and how best to pay for it.
This information is given to help you make a considered choice about whether to have care in your own home or to go to a nursing or residential home.
Useful, independent information can also be found at The Citizen’s Advice Bureau https://citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/getting-financial-advice/ and via the consumer magazine Which? https://which.co.uk/later-life-care
If you would like to consider live-in or hourly home care, speak to us about booking an interim care trial, a 4-6 week care plan so that you can try care at home for yourself without a long term commitment.
