Who can help me plan for my future as an older person?

With an ageing population, Surrey County Council (SCC) approached Healthwatch Surrey to support them with gathering insight into the journey self-funders (people paying for their own care home accommodation) may take to arrive in a residential care home setting. Healthwatch looked at what information and advice sources people would turn to, at various stages of their journey. They spoke to future self-funders in community settings and used an online questionnaire. In total they had 97 respondents. They also carried out face to face interviews with care home residents, their families and care home managers.

Future care planning is a subject that many people don’t want to talk about at all, they are happy to ‘leave it to their children’. Many people have very limited knowledge of the basics - they heard many times that some people don’t know that they might have to pay for social care- ‘why isn’t it like the NHS?’. 

When people do then have to make arrangements for social care it is often in a crisis situation. Involvement in and knowledge of the social care landscape.  The people Healthwatch spoke to fell into 3 different groups: 

1. I know what I’m doing. Those who were very knowledgeable and confident about the social care landscape, (they were not necessarily current users of social care but may have been in the past e.g. for their parent and were now considering for themselves). 

2. I think we might need help soon. Those who are considering needing paid for home care workers in the future (and possibly care homes) for a parent or themselves.

3. We have help, but I don’t know what to do next. Those who currently use paid for home care workers (for their family member) – but are not confident about planning for the future – for more care workers or for care homes. This group are the people who are feeling the pressure of caring, and don’t know where to turn, and what to do next. They are often trying their best to keep their family member at home, but many of them were at breaking point even using paid for home care workers. 

People’s confidence in decision making when it comes to considering care homes is low and they need more support; people want information on care home costs, the quality of care, and reviews. The majority of people said that they look for different information from different organisations. This highlights the perception that there is no “one stop shop” for the provision of information and advice.

Information sources 

People rely on a variety of information sources, there is no clear preferred choice of where people turn so information needs to be consistent across all channels. 

The main sources used for information about living independently at home are: 

• Friends and family (primarily), followed by 
• GP/NHS and Age UK Surrey/Age Concern. 

To find out about paying for care at home, people turn to: 

• The internet 
• Adult social care/’the council’.

Information sources for paying for adaptations that people mentioned were: 

• Adult social care /the council and the local council 
• The internet. 

For information about care homes, the main sources that people used were: 

• The internet 
• The CQC (Care Quality Commission). 

Primary sources for information about paying for care homes were: 

• Adult social care/the council 
• The internet. 

What information are people looking for?

How to access support and what support is available is the main thing people want information and advice on. The other key areas are: 

•  Care costs 
• Financial assessments. 

What kind of information or advice do people want about care homes? People want information on: 

• Care home costs 
• The quality of care 
• Reviews.