A situation that changes every criterion
When someone no longer gets up — after a stroke, a fracture, an advancing illness — choosing a home stops being about the garden and the atmosphere. It becomes about very concrete things: how many staff, what equipment, which protocols. A charming but understaffed home is a poor choice for a bedbound resident.
Nursing home, not residential: the distinction that decides everything
This is the single most important thing to get right. A residential care home provides personal care but has no registered nurse on site. A nursing home has registered nurses on duty, and that is what a bedbound person almost always needs — for pressure area care, catheters, PEG feeding, complex medication.
Get a care needs assessment from the local authority before you start ringing round: it establishes the level of care and, with the financial assessment, who pays. If the needs are primarily health-related, ask specifically about a NHS Continuing Healthcare assessment — it is rarely offered spontaneously and, where granted, the NHS covers the full cost of care.
Pressure sores: the subject that reveals everything
An immobile person is exposed to pressure ulcers, and prevention is a matter of method, not goodwill. Ask these, and listen for whether the answer is precise or vague:
— How often are bedbound residents repositioned?
— What mattress — dynamic air mattress, positioning cushions?
— Do you use a risk assessment tool on admission (Waterlow, Braden)?
— Who manages wound care, and is there tissue viability input?
A team that knows its business answers in seconds with numbers. A team that improvises talks about "close monitoring".
The other things to check
Nights: how many staff for how many residents, and is a registered nurse on duty overnight or on call? The most important figure and the least volunteered.
Meals: who assists, and how long is allowed; malnutrition follows anyone who cannot feed themselves. Ask about SALT input if swallowing is affected.
Physiotherapy: presence, frequency, passive movement.
Equipment: profiling bed, hoist, accessible bathing — and enough staff to use them in pairs when needed.
Pain: in someone who cannot express it, agitation is often pain. Ask whether the team uses an observational pain scale such as Abbey.
Moving in
Arrange patient transport in advance and check the room is accessible. Plan frequent visits in the first days: that is when the adjustments that shape the whole stay get made.
Finding homes that can genuinely manage this
Describe the situation (needs, area, funding) and Curalune Care Help prepares 3–5 matched nursing homes within 24 working hours, with the specific questions about night cover and pressure care already tailored to your case.
General information only; it does not replace advice from the GP or care team. Curalune does not arrange placements and does not guarantee availability.
The starting point, already done
Finding suitable homes, checking they can meet the level of care and gathering the contacts takes days of phone calls. Curalune Care Help gives you that starting point: 3 to 5 suitable care homes within 24 business hours, with contacts, links and a ready-to-send message you can put to all of them at once. £69, one-off: if you don't receive at least 3 homes matching the area and criteria you gave us, we refund you in full. Start here
