Editorial guides
Practical articles, checklists and explanations built around Italian care homes, urgent placement, waiting lists and home-care decisions.
Featured guide
In most cases it is not a stranger on the phone — it is someone close. The signs, the mistake to avoid when you raise it with her, and the steps that actually stop the money leaving.
Usually she is not sleeping because of how the day is organised, not because of a sleep disorder. What to ask about her actual night, the reversible causes nobody checks, and why a hypnotic in an older person often ends in a broken hip.
Overgrown nails change how she walks, and how she walks is why she falls. NHS podiatry has narrowed to high-risk feet, so knowing what the home must do and what you must arrange privately is the whole game.
Untreated hearing loss looks like dementia and makes it worse. In a care home the aid ends up in the drawer with a flat battery. NHS aids, batteries and repairs are free — and audiology and opticians will come to her. Six questions.
With dementia, the language learned second goes first. When nobody in the building understands her, confusion gets written down as agitation. What the Accessible Information Standard requires, what the active offer means in Wales, and six questions.
When someone says "tube", families think the choice is between feeding her and giving up. It is not. What a speech and language therapist assessment should establish first, what the law says about clinically-assisted nutrition, and six questions to ask.
If the council funds her place, a set weekly amount must be left to her — and most families never claim it properly. The difference between an appointee and a deputy, what the home may hold, and six questions to ask.
Heat alerts are public and issued by region, but most care homes were not built for them. What the guidance expects, which common medicines raise the risk, and how to check the plan exists before the next amber alert.
Every autumn a team vaccinates the whole home in a morning — and every autumn some residents are missed, and some are vaccinated without a lawful consent process. What the NHS offers, why blanket consent is not lawful, and six questions to ask.
Moving into a care home usually means changing GP practice, and nobody explains it on the day. What the NHS actually owes a care home resident, why staying with the old surgery rarely works, and the six questions to ask.
Most read
In most cases it is not a stranger on the phone — it is someone close. The signs, the mistake to avoid when you raise it with her, and the steps that actually stop the money leaving.
From 400 miles or another country you cannot tour ten homes or drop in daily. The local network to build before the crisis, the paperwork to hold, and how to use the visits you do make.
Almost nobody moves into a care home by decision — they move after a fall. The changes in order of effect, what the council pays for, and the signs home is no longer enough.
Clothes that survive an industrial laundry, the paperwork that actually matters, and the one page about her life that is worth more than everything else. Plus the classic first-day mistakes.
