Local partners for care homes

For all care homes, with and without nursing care, their most important local partners will be health and social care agencies.

• Most care home residents are older people. Their needs for care and support are similar across all care homes: many people have more than one long-term condition, and take several prescribed drugs.
• There is a high incidence of dementia among care home residents. The Alzheimer’s Society has estimated that around 70 per cent of care home residents are living with dementia or severe memory problems – but these are not always fully recognised or diagnosed.
• A person-centred approach requires a system for involving people in the planning of their own health, care and support. Read National Voices, Wellbeing our way.

The importance of joined-up local working to support the health and care of people in care homes has been recognised in NHS England’s New Models of Care programme.

• Watch a film about the work of six care home ‘vanguard’ sites which aim to offer better, joined-up health, care and rehabilitation services.
• The King’s Fund and My Home Life are also working together to provide a learning network to support collaboration between care homes and local health and care partners.

Local partnerships, of course, do not end with health and social care. Providing the range of services that focus on the individual person will involve partnerships with other local authority services: transport, employment, leisure, and library services, for example.

Collaboration in market shaping with the local authority will help services to connect locally. Working together with other care home providers may enable you to maximise the opportunities you can offer residents.