How Care Home Reviews Can Help You Make the Best Choice for Your Loved Ones

When choosing a care home for your loved one, it’s important that you feel confident in your choice. You can look around the home and chat to staff. This is essential for seeing what the home is like and envisaging your loved one living there. However, beyond this, care home reviews can be a really valuable way of getting a good insight into what the home is like.

There are a number of sources of care home reviews in the UK. However, you need to be a little wary to ensure you are looking at genuine reviews which haven’t been filtered. It’s important to seek out independent reviews. To ensure that you are getting clear, authentic and unbiased care home reviews we recommend two sources: Carehome.co.uk reviews and the relevant Care Quality Commission (CQC) report for the target care home.

Be very wary of Google reviews which are peppered with marketing, spam and biased information.

Also be very wary if reviews provided are based solely on feedback cards given to residents and their loved ones in a home, and then published elsewhere. This system is fraught with bias! You are likely to only see positive reviews and others will have been discarded.

Be aware also that people are more likely to leave highly negative reviews rather than middling or high reviews. It’s an easy way of voicing their opinion and letting off steam. Typically, these issues can be best rectified through direct communication with the care home, or other provider. These reviews can be worrying and misleading for those considering a provider. It’s often better, if the reviews exist, to take more notice of what’s written in 3-4 star reviews as you can identify genuine weaknesses, rather than the ramblings of a disgruntled individual.

Take care to ensure you’re looking at reviews about what it’s like being a care home resident, rather than reviews by staff about employment practices. This can be very misleading for those considering choosing a home for a loved one.

Let’s look at the two sources of care home reviews that you can trust.

Carehome.co.uk care home reviews

For reviews from individual residents, but mostly from their loved ones and family members, you can head to www.carehome.co.uk. Here, individuals can leave their own detailed review about a particular care home.

Carehome.co.uk is definitely the best review site for ensuring unbiased reviews. You can search their list of over 18,500 care homes across the country. While you’ll still find that most homes only have a clutch of reviews, you can rest assured that these are authentic. They get 76,000 new reviews a year, so while each care home may not seem to have many, this is the most populated review site you’ll find. Hopefully it’ll continue to grow over time.

We are really proud that at Eastleigh, we have all 5 star reviews on carehome.co.uk. Reviewers are prompted to rate the individual care home out of 5 for:

• Facilities
• Care/support
• Cleanliness
• Treated with dignity
• Food and drink
• Staff
• Activities
• Management
• Safety/Security
• Rooms
• Value for money

These individual ratings are then combined to give an overall score, in the form of stars, out of 5.

Beyond the scores, it’s really helpful to look at what the reviewer has written in the body of the review. Take a look at who has written the review too. For example, some Eastleigh care home reviews are:

• “Brilliant home, with lovely bedrooms that could be made as homely as you like. A range of different activities to keep everyone entertained which were available every day. The food was incredible. I could not say enough about how good this home is. Also when visiting, the home was always immaculate.” By a grandson of a resident.
• “Both my parents were residents at Eastleigh Care Home, my father for 3 months, my mother for five years. Throughout their time there they were treated with kindness, care and respect with their wishes and dignity always born in mind. Their end of life treatment was carried out with great care and compassion. The staff communicated with us regularly and when needed and always welcomed us when we visited.” By a daughter of a resident.

As you can see, by looking into the written review, you can get a really good feel for the home. You can consider all of the factors that have been rated, but particularly get a feel for trust and care within the home environment.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) Reports

We highly recommend looking at the CQC report for the prospective home for the most clear and evaluated insight into the individual home. This offers the most comprehensive information available about every aspect of life in the home. It’s professionally conducted and independent, and based on inspectors actually spending time in the home. They are usually carried out at least once a year.

Unlike reviews on carehome.co.uk, a CQC report is a hefty and detailed document. As such, it can seem a little harder to wade through. However, we really recommend you do. Read our guidance on how to understand a CQC report.

A CQC report will give a care home an overall rating. These ratings can be:

• Outstanding
• Good
• Requires Improvement
• Inadequate

A care provider (and this extends beyond care homes) should clearly state the rating they have been given from the CQC. For example, we list this on our website for each of the Eastleigh Care Homes. In spring 2022 our CQC ratings are:

• Raleigh Mead: Good
• Minehead: Good
• East Street (South Molton): Outstanding

Search for a CQC report for a care home.

Every single care provider in England has to register with the CQC and have regular inspections. During these inspections, which include unannounced visits, the inspectors get feedback from both service users (residents and families) and staff. You can consider a CQC report as an amalgamation of reviews, and indeed they sometimes quote parts of feedback within their detailed reports.

To give you an idea of the detail involved in a CQC report, we’ve selected snapshots from the reports of each of our Eastleigh homes.

·         Raleigh Mead – CQC Rating: Good

Our Raleigh Mead home is based in South Molton, Devon, and offers enhanced care, particularly for those with dementia.

See the Raleigh Mead CQC report in full.

A snippet of the report includes reviews from individual residents:

“Most people were unable to give an informed view about their experiences of living at Eastleigh Raleigh Mead. Those who could were positive about their experiences in the main. Comments included “I’ve never been so well looked after, I want for nothing”. Also, “Safer than I would be at home, I call it the ‘little fortress”. One relative commented “I’ve no complaints at all. I’m extremely happy with the way they treat me and my family”.

 

Our observations showed us people were being treated with kindness, respect and dignity. Staff were attentive and understood people’s individual needs.”

·         Minehead – CQC Rating: Good

Our Minehead home is located close to the heart of the town but also benefits from wonderful mature gardens.

See the Minehead CQC report in full.

A quote from the most recent full Minehead inspection report is:

“People felt safe at the home and with the staff who supported them. One person told us, “Although I can’t do much for myself, they are always kind to me which makes me feel very safe indeed.”

People received effective care from staff who had the skills and knowledge to meet their needs. One person said, “The care here is good. Actually it’s a very high standard.” Staff monitored people’s health and well-being and made sure they had access to other healthcare professionals according to their individual needs.”

·         East Street – CQC Rating: Outstanding

Our East Street home is in South Molton and is a wonderful environment with caring staff and exceptional facilities.

See the East Street CQC report in full.

A section of the East Street CQC report states:

“There was evidence of real detail on interventions for people living with complex dementia. For example, instructing staff to ensure consistency, clear explanations, instructions at a slow pace and one at a time, use of reminiscence, address by preferred name. There was also use of behavioural signs of physical issues. For example, when someone had a full bladder, they may indicate this by becoming fidgety in their chair. This attention to detail showed people’s needs and wishes were truly being considered. Staff were able to describe people’s needs and wishes in detail. The impact for people was visible in the interactions we observed throughout the day. Staff were skilled and knowledgeable to understanding people’s needs and honouring their preferred routines.”

 These examples help you to see the level of detail included in a CQC report which surpasses any other available reviews.

Use the information you can gather from carehome.co.uk and the CQC report to gain insight into the homes that you are considering so that you can make the best choice for your loved one.