What to expect from a care home needs assessment at Borough Care

How do care home needs assessments work?

An essential part of moving into care is a care home needs assessment, which aims to identify what care you need and whether your chosen home can provide it. But what can you expect from a care home needs assessment with Borough Care? In this article, we’ll share helpful information about care home needs assessments, what you can expect from a Borough Care needs assessment and how we can support you in moving into a Borough Care home.

Social services care assessments & care home needs assessments: what’s the difference?

When moving into care, there are a few different assessments that you may need to do. Depending on your circumstances, you might speak to an appointed social worker about receiving a social services care assessment before having a care home needs assessment from the home you’re looking to move into. However, what’s the difference between the two?

Social services care assessments

A social services care assessment is carried out by an appointed social worker and involves a visit from them to learn more about you and your care needs. The aim of this assessment is to understand if you’re in need of care and, if so, to help direct you towards the care that’s best suited to you; residential care, dementia care or nursing care. To learn more about social services care assessments, read our help and advice for people living with dementia.

Care home needs assessments

A care home needs assessment is a separate assessment carried out by the care home you’re interested in moving into. Similarly to a social care needs assessment, this assessment will consist of questions about your health and care needs. However, the aim of this assessment is to find out if the care home is able to offer the care that you require.

Wondering if it's the right time to move a loved one into care?

A few signs to look out for could include:

🛀 Struggles with day-to-day tasks
🏥 A medical condition or syndrome diagnosis
🏓 Less of an interest in hobbies

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How does a care home assessment work at Borough Care?

Even if you’ve received a social care needs assessment, we’d still need to do our own in order to understand your care needs. A social care assessment helps to give someone an idea of whether or not they need care, whereas the Borough Care needs assessment lets us know if we can meet your needs. To give more of an idea of the process of receiving a care home needs assessment at Borough Care, we’re laying out all the steps involved in the process. Here’s what you can expect from your assessment.

Getting in touch

Reaching out to our team is the first step in your care home needs assessment journey. There are a number of different ways you can contact us about your care home assessment with Borough Care. Depending on your preference, you can reach out via email at enquiries@boroughcare.org.uk, call us at 0161 475 0140 or contact us via social media on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram or Twitter. Once you do, our team will be in touch to help you through the process.

Organising your assessment

After an initial enquiry, we’ll organise for one of our Home Managers or Deputy Home Managers to visit you for your assessment. This would involve us booking a meeting with the person who’s looking to move into care and their carer. If you’re interested in a specific home, we’ll always try to send out the Home Manager or Deputy Home Manager from that care home. This way, you can get to know more about the home that you’re interested in and we can understand if the home can offer the best care for you.

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Planning your care together

Depending on the results of your care home needs assessment, we’ll work together to make a plan of action for your care. If we establish that we can offer you the care you need, we’ll encourage you to come into the home to meet the team and get a feel for the environment. This is a great opportunity to ask any questions about our care, facilities, fees, and anything else. Then, if you’re happy to move forward, we’ll organise a move-in date with you and begin the admissions process. To learn more about moving into a Borough Care home, read our step-by-step guide.

Finding alternative care

Sometimes, after a full assessment, we may conclude that it isn’t possible for us to meet the specific needs of someone who’s looking to move into one of our care homes. This could be due to a number of different reasons, including:

1. We can’t offer the specific type of care you need
Borough Care is a specialist dementia care home provider, so our care is tailored to support people living with dementia. If the person looking to move into care has a very specific condition that requires specialist care, we may not have the facilities to provide the level of care you need.

2. We don’t have any availability at our homes
Sometimes it may be the case that we don’t have any availability at our homes. Usually, if we don’t have availability at your first-choice care home, we’ll suggest another one of our homes as a second choice.

3. We believe the person may be a risk to other residents
When moving someone into our homes, we have to think of the safety of other residents in our care. In some cases, we may find that the person looking to move into a Borough Care home could be a danger to residents. For example, if the person is experiencing severe mental illness or is particularly aggressive to others.

If we come to the conclusion that we can’t offer you the care you need then we’ll support you in your next steps.