How To Choose The Right Care Home In Hertfordshire

Thinking about choosing a care home for yourself or an elderly relative can be difficult. You ideally want to find somewhere comfortable, close to family, with good facilities and a team of compassionate carers – but the most important factor is finding a home in Hertfordshire that meets all of your care needs. 

Hertfordshire is a county in the South East of England, bordering Cambridgeshire, Essex and Buckinghamshire. Hertfordshire blends rural charm and country living, with excellent public transport links to London, several tourist attractions and plenty of green spaces to explore and enjoy. With several towns and cities inside the county’s boundaries, and plenty of care homes within them, you’ll be spoilt for choice when choosing your care home. 

The city of St Albans in Hertfordshire is famous for its cathedral, Abbey and Roman ruins, and is the ideal place to call home if you’re looking to be situated centrally and with plenty of amenities around you. If you’re looking for a care home near St Albans, many reputable care home providers including Oakland Care have several homes around the area that could be the perfect home for you or your loved one. 

There are some key questions to ask yourself when choosing a care home to ensure you find the right fit, so, if you want to know how to find a care home for you or your loved one, here are some things to consider when looking for the perfect care home in Hertfordshire. 

Location 

The location of the home is one of the biggest factors you should think about when looking into care homes. Can your loved ones visit easily? Consider whether there is parking or public transport accessible nearby that your friends and family can use to visit, or that you and your carers can utilise for days out. 

The most popular areas in Hertfordshire to live are St Albans, Hitchin, Harpenden and Watford, which all boast different amenities and are all well connected to the surrounding areas. Once you’ve chosen an area, such as St Albans, you could try looking for a care home near St Albans if that area has all the things you’re looking for in a new place to live. 

Harpenden Town Council, for example, have committed to making Harpenden a Dementia Friendly Town, with a Memory Lane Café for residents who suffer from dementia. Residents who are suffering with the illness, or are caring for someone who does, are able to visit freely and access support they may not find elsewhere. 

Having facilities like this in the area around the care home you choose can improve the quality of life for both care home residents and their loved ones. Oakland Care have recently developed a new, state-of-the-art care home in Harpenden that runs on renewable energy, so if sustainable living is something that you feel passionate about, this home might be the one for you. 

CQC ratings and reviews 

Remember, you’re not the first person to be looking for a care home in Hertfordshire; there are plenty of reviews online that can help you see what it’s really like to live, or have a loved one stay, in the care home you’re looking into. 

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) independently inspects care homes across England to make sure that they meet the required quality standards that are in place to keep elderly people safe. They judge the care service provided is safe, effective, caring, responsive, and well-led, giving a rating for each of these categories as ‘Outstanding’, ‘Good’, ‘Requires Improvement’, or ‘Inadequate’. The care service is also given an overall rating. If the service is rated ‘Good’ or above, it means that the service is performing well, is safe, and meets CQC’s expectations of how things should run. 

When looking at the various care homes in Hertfordshire, it’s important to compare CQC ratings and read resident reviews. While a home may have all the mod cons and be in a desirable area, if the level of care you or your loved one will receive is deemed inadequate by the CQC, it’s best to keep looking to find somewhere more suitable. 

This goes for resident reviews too – while a home may have a glowing rating by outside officials, the people who are living in the homes are the ones who interact with the nurses, carers and use the facilities, so talk to residents if possible or read reviews left by families online, as these will give you an insight into the home. 

If the residents are not happy with anything in the home, your loved one or you will likely feel the same. While not everyone will share the same levels of care and have the same experiences, both positive and negative, it’s important to see the personal side of the care home too. 

Facilities and features 

The features and facilities in a care home can really make a difference to the whole experience, and many new care homes are designed to make your time there as enjoyable as possible. While one of the main reasons for going into a care home is that you or your family member needs a little more looking after than they used to, or require a high level of care, you still want to be able to enjoy the time you spend there. 

If you are moving from a large family home, you will want to have the same standard of living, if not better, than you had before moving into a care home. 

Modern care homes, and especially purpose-built ones, now include things like en-suite rooms as standard, and have updated furnishings, landscaped gardens, cafés, restaurants and bistros on site, as well as hair salons, cinema rooms and more! 

While the building may be up to date, are there any fun activities and outings you can join in with? Most homes will have daily programmes of fun and accessible social events and activities, such as mindfulness and movement classes, days out to local accessible attractions, or afternoon entertainment. Having plenty to do will keep your mind and body active in your later years, and having all of this under one roof can make your day-to-day life fun and interesting. 

Think about the things that would keep you entertained and enhance your living experience in a care home. Do you enjoy tending to your garden at home? See if any of the care homes near you have an outdoor space where you can help plant and grow flowers or vegetables. 

If you like to keep your hands busy by crocheting or knitting, does the home have a knit and natter group where you can chat with other residents while working on your projects? If you like to keep fit and active, does the home have regular exercise and movement classes where you can learn new ways to keep fit and move your body, like dance classes, yoga or a gentle martial art? 

Just because you’re moving into a care home doesn’t mean your life has to become stagnant. Many homes have jam-packed daily itineraries for you to get involved in, as well as comfy communal areas and living spaces where you can relax and enjoy a more laid-back lifestyle if that’s more your thing. 

Choosing a care home is an incredibly personal decision – there are a lot of different factors, and what might be right for one person, might be totally wrong for another. Make sure to do your research, and choose carefully!