Choosing a care home is an important decision. These answers bring together the practical information families most often ask us before a new admission.
From fees and deposits to laundry, healthcare and care planning, we want you to feel informed before making a decision. Select any question below to read the answer. If there is something else you would like to know, please speak with our team.
Asking the right questions when choosing your care home is essential. Getting the answers to the questions below is a good place to start.
Some of the most common questions asked to us, along with our answers below, if you can think of anything else let us know we will hopefully have the answers;
Full board meals, drinks, and room accommodation, laundry. Also, full 24-hour care costs. St Michael’s Homes has decided not to increase care costs bands, which have been determined from the initial assessment, even if there is a big difference in care banding with added support required by us we will honour our initial care band assessment and we will not increase the band throughout your stay within our care homes.
General fees are reviewed annually on the person’s anniversary with the care home. So if the resident joins the home in August time they will not see any increase in general fees until the following year in August. These fees are worked out on general inflation at the time and general wage increases which need to happen every year.
Yes, we ask for a £6,000 fully refundable deposit for a single person and £10,000 for couples on a permanent private contract, which is paid before moving into any of our care homes. This deposit will hold the room for you and can assist the home in the unlikely event of non-payment of fees or damages by the resident in our care. Mainly, these deposits are used to assist families in making final fees and sundry payments. These deposits have been most helpful for families when accounts can be put into probate state in the event of a resident passing in our care, where accounts are then frozen. This deposit can then assist families in making our final payments to the care home. Please also make sure you provide a wish list of where you wish to refund the deposit to another beneficiary of your choice, please let us know who and where you would like this refunded to, as your beneficiaries, and we will note this on our system and make sure your wishes are met.
Deposits are normally paid back after any deductions are made within 6 weeks.
General fees should always be paid in advance, sundry items are normally paid in one month’s arrears; however, you can make a payment towards sundry items on a card at reception. We recommend that everyone set up a direct debit with us so we can make the timely sundry and general fee payments and also assist the residents and families with the administrative burden of remembering to make our payments. Ask our accounts department how to set up a direct debit payment, and we will send you the link. It’s very easy and secure.
Yes, we can provide a full list of additional costs from the receptions or the account team, which change from year to year; these additional costs are mostly to cover the actual cost we pay. We do not charge for activities within the home this is all fully included in your general fees. Additional costs are mostly items/services, ie, Transportation for appointments to the hospital, should you need our assistance, profile beds, incontinence pads, hairdresser, chiropody, Sky TV, private phone in your room, etc.
Not really, however, you can if you have a high-expense item you wish to keep in the home i.e. jewellery, electrical items however we would advise you do not keep high expense items in the home, please speak with the management team or reception and we can note with them any high-expense items you have within the home so we can add this to our list of insured personal belongings for each resident. If these items are not disclosed to the care home, then they will not be covered under our insurance. The care home has its own residents’ contents insurance which will cover the items and belongings of the residents up to £250 for any one claim. If there is any item that costs more than £250, then we would advise you to take out your own contents insurance on these items or not have it inside the care home.
Personal money of residents, we would advise you not to keep this within the home.
Yes, sorry we would still need to continue to charge our fees as we would still need to cover the cost of the room, staff wages etc. We do give a discount if you are out of the care home for longer then 4 weeks and will give a 10% discount on your fees.
No, we can provide a labelling tagging service for you. Our tagging system is a tried and tested system that works well with our laundry systems. Other label systems have a tendency to come off and we are unable to recover these lost items in many cases if they don’t have our laundry tags. So please do not put items unlabelled or untagged into our laundry as they will go missing and will be difficult for us to find them again. We do have a lost and found rail. Should anything go missing, please contact the housekeeping management team so they can try and locate these missing items. Please do not put anything into our laundry which needs dry cleaning we do not provide these services.
Yes, we strongly advise bringing any items like bedroom furniture, i.e. bed, drawers, TV, wardrobe and armchair, etc, with you to make our home feel like your home. We can provide a normal standard Divan bed, drawers and a wardrobe if you would prefer. All electrical items have to be PAT tested by our maintenance team, these items will also be check yearly their after to make sure they are safe.
When you join the care home we will notify our local GP and they will provide all GP services within the home should this be on a respite stay or permanent basis. We would not wish to work with your current GP, however we may consider working with your GP on short term placements within the care homes. We have built up good working relationships with our GPs & district nursing teams and they play a vital role within the homes, they often come into the homes to complete surgeries weekly/daily.
We advise you to assess your financial position before entering a care home. Completing a financial assessment with the council will determine if they can assist you now or in the near future. The council or the carer home may ask you to complete a Credit check to confirm that you have sufficient funding in place to fund a placement within the home.
It’s also recommended that everyone who is running low on funding approach the local authority where they used to reside 3 months prior to reaching the capped allowance of £23,250. This will give the authority time to complete a financial assessment and advise on a course of action to be taken. Please also arrange a meeting with accounts and the management team at the care home, and they can advise you on the next steps to take. Authority may look at funding your placement or partly funding a placement with the care home. Depending on the length of the placement in the care home before funding has run out, it may lead to the placement with us being compromised and the authority may ask you to relocate to another care home which accepts their lower rates, This is different for each person and sometimes depends on their care needs and their local authority.
We advise you to assess your financial position before entering a care home. Completing a financial assessment with the council will determine if they can assist you now or in the near future. The council or the carer home may ask you to complete a Credit check to confirm that you have sufficient funding in place to fund a placement within the home.
It’s also recommended that everyone who is running low on funding approach the local authority where they used to reside 3 months prior to reaching the capped allowance of £23,250. This will give the authority time to complete a financial assessment and advise on a course of action to be taken. Please also arrange a meeting with accounts and the management team at the care home, and they can advise you on the next steps to take. Authority may look at funding your placement or partly funding a placement with the care home. Depending on the length of the placement in the care home before funding has run out, it may lead to the placement with us being compromised and the authority may ask you to relocate to another care home which accepts their lower rates, This is different for each person and sometimes depends on their care needs and their local authority.
The care home will complete a care plan with you or your loved one in our care, this will cover specific items of care ask detailed questions on how we can deliver the care you or your loved one would need or like to receive from us. These care plans are often reviewed every 6 months or when there is any big changes in a residents health. Please, we ask that you do not hold off for a care review to inform us of anything you are not happy about or concerns, we would wish to make sure we are delivering the care you wish and deserve at all times.
We regularly assess the care homes’ care dependence levels and complete an assessment monthly, looking at everyone’s care requirements and needs within the home, and then this is assessed with the staffing levels to make sure we always have adequate staffing numbers on the care floor at all times.
We will always suggest that you let us know if there is something we have done wrong so that we can learn and put in place procedures to mitigate it from occurring again. Please make a complaint in email, phone or in person with the management team, all contact details are available in our Statement of Purpose information sheets, which are in each resident’s bedroom. We have an open-door policy with our management and directors so please do not put off a complaint we would rather hear about it so we can try our best to put it right or provide you with all the necessary information you might need promptly.
Every resident’s circumstances are different. Our team can explain the admissions process, discuss individual care needs and clarify current fees or additional costs.
