Choosing the Right Home Care Solution for Your Loved One

With so many considerations when choosing the right home care company for yourself or a loved one, there are some key elements not to miss.

Choosing an in home care service can be complex. Families and individuals need to consider so many factors, including costs, availability and carer working hours, alongside requiring the assurance that any carer looking after the welfare of a loved one will be appropriately qualified, compassionate and friendly.

Guardian Angel Carers has a nationwide network of outstanding UK home care branches, all focused on person-first, tailored care to ensure every person can retain the right to live independently at home, whether they need long-term live in care, visiting care for a set number of hours a week, or specialist care for conditions such as Dementia, Alzheimer’s, or following a hospital stay or treatment.

Here we explain some of the key elements we recommend clients look for when choosing a fantastic home care provider, from practical proficiency to quality standards and transparent record-keeping and information sharing.

Selecting the Right Type of Home Care Services

Step one often begins with an assessment of the care you, or your relative, require. This factor is important because home care providers and agencies offer a broad range of services, including:

• Home care structured over visiting hours, overnight care, and live in care.
• Companionship, personal, domestic and domiciliary care.
• Specialist cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, Dementia and Alzheimer’s care.
• Help with home-from-hospital recovery and stroke rehabilitation.
• Mobility and frailty care for older adults and those with limited mobility.
• Palliative and end-of-life care, alongside familial respite care.

The type of care you need also affects the nature of your care visits. For example, you might wish to have a carer visit once per day for a few hours, every morning and evening, on days when family carers are unavailable, or overnight.

Picking the right home care agency with the services, skills, and specialist care you require is essential to ensure every carer that visits will have the capabilities to meet your needs, whether a friendly face to help with domestic chores and personal care or an experienced carer trained in certain conditions.

Ideally, your home care provider will offer you the opportunity to discuss all of these aspects in person, either at their offices, your home, or the home of your loved one, providing better insight than you can achieve through phone conversations.

The Significance of Home Care Continuity

Continuity is paramount, and anybody receiving care in the home will wish to have a familiar face or a regular rota of carers they know, trust and can build a rapport with over time.

Agencies with high staff turnovers may send a different carer every time, which can create confusion, anxiety and stress, particularly for older people or adults living with conditions that affect their cognition and memory.

Some of the questions you might wish to ask a home care agency could be:

• Will the same carer visit every day, and will I know who is coming in advance?
• Can I book a carer for the same fixed hours per day or week?
• What happens if a carer is late or doesn't arrive?
• How will you manage carer absences or sicknesses?

There are no bad questions, and an excellent home care provider will be more than happy to spend some time explaining how their service works, clarifying the system of matching carers to individuals or families and walking through the next steps to ensure you are fully informed.

Quality Standards and Professional Home Care Skills

Quality is fundamental to home care delivery, and a seasoned care provider will demonstrate evidence of their professional standing and commitment to delivering care that is patient, respectful and personalised.

Some of the indications of quality care you can look for include the following:

• Regulatory registration with the Care Quality Commission in England, the Care Inspectorate Wales or the Scottish Care Inspectorate with publicly available results from their most recent inspection, where applicable.
• Carer training, with at least a formal Care Certificate for all home care staff and more advanced qualifications such as care related NVQs or medical accreditations for specialist or more senior home carers.
• Positive reviews and testimonials from existing and previous clients. These might be published on the agency's website, social media pages, or third-party review sites such as Homecare and Trustpilot.

Many people prioritise home care providers with a regulatory inspection rating of 'Good' or above. Still, reviews from real-life users can be just as informative and help you understand the standards and quality of care you can expect from your short-listed agencies.

You can enquire about aspects of care staff training, especially where this is vital to meet the needs of the individual. Examples might include training in first aid responses to strokes, epileptic fits, heart attacks or other symptoms and side effects of ongoing conditions.

Communication and Family Support

Often, the primary reason a family decides to organise home care is that relatives and loved ones struggle to offer the level of ongoing help, practical assistance and emotional support necessary to ensure the individual is safe, comfortable, content and well looked after.

While respite care for family caregivers can make a profound difference, communication is also required, with dialogues and open conversations around:

• Updates on the person’s care, condition, well-being and overall happiness.
• Information about meals and medications that have been provided.
• Confirmation of changes to the individual's routine or verification that all the daily tasks, such as personal care, have been completed.

Families should look for care agencies that have exceptional service and are responsive to requests, such as providing additional care hours during holidays, adjusting the number of care visits per week, and increasing or decreasing hours as needed.

Communications ensure you can trust that your care, or that of a loved one, is in good hands, and you will be informed straight away should anything happen you need to know about.

For more guidance on choosing a home care provider or comparing the varied types of home care, please contact the Guardian Angel Carers team at any time.

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Source Company – https://www.gacarers.co.uk/