Care home or nursing home, is there a difference?

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

After a stressful few weeks with my aunt, my cousin and I are just starting to think about options. Not that our aunt will agree to any of them at the moment but we're planning for the seemingly inevitable.

Is there a difference between a care home and a nursing home, or are they the same? It would be private, if that makes a difference, she has enough money to afford it.

Any suggestions about what to look for/ask about would be more than welcome, thank you.

[pudcat]

www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-GB/Information-guides/AgeUKIG06_Care_homes_inf.pdf?dtrk=true

This helps to explain the difference between them. But have you thought about sheltered housing or carers coming into her home.

Social services will have a list of homes. Look round a lot of them and go on spec.

www.carehome.co.uk/

This tells you of homes in your area and will have reviews and links to inspection reports.

[MiddleAgeMiddleEngland]

pudcat Thank you so much, that's really helpful. I'll look at the links a bit later - visitors expected any minute.

We're looking at all the options although carers or a care home would seem to be best. She's losing the ability to care for herself so would probably find settling into sheltered accomodation too hard and confusing.

Many thanks again

[ProfessorDent]

Sure the above pdf gives the info, but I have found that a nursing home is basically for anyone who can't feed themselves, not even if they don't need nursing care. It means they need extra staff to see they are fed. It limits your options.

There are no TripAdvisor style review sites for care/nursing homes. The Carehome.co.uk website gives a list of homes in your area, but the reviews are called 'recommendations' because negative reviews are not allowed, it being a legal minefield probably. Daftly, they do allow 'ratings' which of course are all 8 out of 10 as most stuff on Amazon would be if only positive reviews were allowed.

Pay a few a visit to see if any eliminate themselves at once, but don't burn your bridges, act all nice throughout. Ask if there are nearby transport links, esp on a Sunday (as many will be down that day, just when you want to visit), are there mad ravers at the place (more for nursing homes often), any nice places within 100 metres you can go for a coffee or tea when you visit, a park even.

If it is just your aunt, you have more options than if they have a spouse who lives nearby and has to visit every other day.

[5HundredUsernamesLater]

I always thought that care homes provided support for everyday things like washing , dressing etc and that nursing homes offered more specialist care for residents with more complex health issues.

[ProfessorDent]

Oh, that's true. All I meant was, if your relative has no real complex health issues, just a few pills need taking, sit her up all day, but crucially can't feed herself, that's means you're talking about a nursing home.