On the BBC’s You and Yours today on Radio 4 Peter White and guests have been discussing a ‘Trip advisor’ type website to allow the public to make comments on and review care homes. Trip Advisor allows you to make comments on restaurants and hotels etc. I have used Trip Advisor in the past but whose opinion am I taking? how do I know that they enjoy the same things as I do? How do I know that a bad review has not been written by a local rival? I think that Trip Advisor is not somewhere that I would go to in order to take an opinion. Would you? I would prefer to listen to friends, colleagues and possibly restaurant critics.
A bad meal or poor stay in a hotel cannot be compared to a care home. Moving into a care home is more like buying and moving into a new home. When buying a property a lawyer goes into great detail about the purchase, some of which is pretty mundane (for example where is the outside bin kept!)
If an elderly relative is in need of care and therefore moving home (because it is their new home even though they are sharing it with others) some serious time and research are required, if you do not have time for that then would you not consider employing a specialist company to do it for you?
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An excellent point, and I am delighted that you took the time to write about the discussion we had on BBC Radio 4.
This was a point that I was hoping to get across during the programme, but we ran out of time. I agree that a comparison website for care homes that enables you to ‘compare’ them (which we are already running) will only provide a snapshot of the care home. As you say, potential residents should then look into a selected care home in far more detail before making any decisions. I agree that professional advice should be retained wherever possible. Too many care home residents rely soley on the advice of their local Social Services Officer who, quite often, is over stretched and cannot devote a large amount of time to assisting residents with their care home search.
Thanks again for your post.