Out of county care You can choose a care home outside your home county. You may want to be closer to friends or family, or you may want to relocate to another part of the country. If you choose to move to a new local authority area and, before you move, you are eligible for support from Wiltshire Council to pay for your care, Wiltshire Council may contribute to the costs of your care home placement in the other area. The council will usually only pay care home fees that are the same as the fees that the local authority where you are moving to would pay. If the care home that you would like to move to is more expensive than this, the council might offer you an alternative at a fee that it would agree to pay, or you may wish to pay a ‘top-up’ to cover the difference. For more information about paying for care, see page 45.
support that your new local authority could give you if you need help to pay the care home fees in the future. If you pay for your own care when you move, any help that you may later need to pay for care would need to come from the local authority in the area you move to. For help finding care across England, call Care Choices on: 0800 389 2077 with details of your requirements.
If you are paying for your own care, you should contact the local authority in the area that you are moving to, so that they can support you with advice and information. It is important to find out about the
My Home Life My Home Life is a UK-wide initiative, sponsored by Age UK, City University and Dementia UK, aimed at promoting quality of life for those who are living in, visiting or working in care homes for older people. Its focus is: ‘what makes life good in care homes now, what could make them better and how might we get there?’. Wiltshire Council, as part of its commitment to working with care homes to improve quality of life, has invested in this programme and has supported more than 30 care home managers to participate in the Leadership Support Programme. This gives the skills to integrate the best-practice themes detailed below into the day-to-day culture of their homes. My Home Life identifies eight key themes that focus on what best-practice in care homes for older people looks like in the 21st century, which could be useful
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to keep in mind during conversations with care homes: 1. Maintaining identity – learning more about residents’ lives to enable a person-centred approach, tailor care and support to individual needs. 2. Sharing decision-making – valuing everyone’s contribution to help the home function as a community. 3. Creating community – through the relationship between residents, their family, friends, staff and the wider community. 4. Managing transitions – moving to a care home is a major transition which may involve considerable losses, but, with appropriate planning and support, can bring improved quality of life for people and their families.
For assistance with finding care and support, call Care Choices on 0800 389 2077