Home care provision means inviting someone into your own home that you can trust. It isn’t something that should be taken lightly, especially if the care provision will mean dealing with intimate care, such as washing or dressing. In the UK, all professional care providers are regulated – and rightly so – but this does not mean that the quality of the care they provide is uniform. In fact, it can vary quite widely. Therefore, you should shop around, not turn to the first care provider you find and ask a few questions about the way in-home care services are provided. Read on to find out what you should be looking for.
CQC Commendations
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the body responsible for assessing care providers. Any in-home care service provider that has received an outstanding rating for things like leadership or management systems, for example, is likely to highlight this fact. Therefore, look for domestic service providers that make a song and dance out of their CQC rating. It is a sign not just of excellent care provision but of confidence in what they’re doing.
Seek Out Various Types of Care
Domiciliary care – care that is conducted in the home – takes many forms. Your current requirements may only mean you need some assistance a couple of times a week but ask yourself what about the future? You might need a firm that can offer specialist dementia services, overnight care or even palliative care at some point. Rather than changing service providers, it will be good to know that you can alter your care plan as and when circumstances alter.
Enquire About Managerial Oversight
This is important because it is care workers who provide in-home care, not managers. Although managers may come out with care workers from time to time, you need to be able to have confidence that your care is being monitored routinely by an experienced managerial team. According to a reputable home care provider in Essex, investing in modern communications technology means forward-thinking care companies can keep tabs on all of their staff while they’re in the field. This boils down to confirming appointment times are met and that each individual task on a care plan is ticked off in real-time as it is completed.
Read the Reviews
Whether you are commissioning care for yourself or booking a care firm to provide respite care so you can take a break from caring for a family member, there is only so much research you can do. Therefore, it is a good idea to read the testimonials other clients of the care firm you are considering appointing have left. There are numerous ways to obtain independent reviews including homecare.co.uk which provides reviews for care companies all over the country. Usually, the average score out of 10 is used to summarise the reviews that have been left for a particular service provider, allowing you to make a quick comparison about their reliability.