New Website To Take Care Home Sector By Storm

Older care home residents face a brighter future thanks to an innovative new website designed especially to help care home professionals - from assistants to inspectors - to improve standards of care.


Launched by Help the Aged, with funding from Bupa Giving, myhomelife.uk is the first website of its kind. Connecting care homes across the UK, it will allow care home professionals to share best practice on key topics such as creating a sense of community within care homes and staff training.


Care homes will be profiled and care workers can exchange and look up top tips on promoting best practice in their care homes.


Last year, in a report entitled 'My Home Life: Quality of Life in Care Homes', Help the Aged revealed how care home staff are all too often undervalued and overworked in what has become a 'forgotten sector.' The Charity called on health and social care professionals to join a 'movement' in what Help the Aged hopes will result in better recognition of the value that care homes can bring to the lives of older people.


Since the publication of the report, over 500 care homes across the UK have joined the Help the Aged 'My Home Life' network.


Julienne Meyer, My Home Life programme director, said: 'Too often care homes come under hostile scrutiny, with only bad practice making the limelight. Very little emphasis is placed on care homes as part of the solution to the long term care crisis we're currently witnessing.


'This new website is about celebrating the care home sector and appreciating the workforce who make quality of life for older residents their priority. But not only this, it's about building upon the good practice that already exists in care homes and valuing a sector that has untapped and unrecognised potential to promote real quality of care for older people.'


Key features of the website include:


-- evidence-based briefings on a range of issues, from managing the transition into care homes to creating opportunities for meaningful activities to end of life care;

-- shared space to connect with other care homes, allowing for the exchange of top tips and peer support; and

-- educational resources to help with staff development and training.


Julienne Meyer adds: 'For many older people living in care homes, retaining their sense of individual identity is paramount. However we also need to consider how we involve relatives and support staff to cope with the challenging work that they face day-in, day-out.'


My Home Life is led by Help the Aged, the National Care Forum and City University. It is a collaborative programme bringing together organisations which reflect the interests of care home providers, commissioners, regulators and older people themselves.



Help the Aged is the charity fighting to free disadvantaged older people in the UK and overseas from poverty, isolation, neglect and ageism. It campaigns to raise public awareness of the issues affecting older people and to bring about policy change. The Charity delivers a range of services: information and advice, home support and community living, including international development work. These are supported by its paid-for services and fundraising activities - which aim to increase funding in the future to respond to the growing unmet needs of disadvantaged older people. Help the Aged also funds vital research into the health issues and experiences of older people to improve the quality of later life.















BUPA Care Services operates 295 nursing and residential homes with over 21,000 registered beds. 25 percent of beds in BUPA care homes are registered for specialist dementia care. Approximately 70 percent of those who live in BUPA care homes receive some sort of state funding.


BUPA Giving is a new charitable initiative set-up to celebrate BUPA turning 60 this year and complements BUPA's existing charitable initiatives. BUPA Giving supports the development of services and those who provide them to improve health and care.


The City University was founded in 1894 as the Northampton Institute and was awarded full university status in 1966. Today the University is renowned for its international focus, the employability of its graduates (5th in The Sunday Times 2006 graduate employability table) and its links with business and professions.


The National Care Forum (NCF) was established in 2003, building on more than 10 years of the Care Forum, to promote quality outcomes for people receiving care services through the not-for-profit sector. The NCF embraces the diversity of the care sector and includes within membership a wide range of services: home care, housing with care, day care, intermediate care, outreach, residential and nursing care, and specialist provision for all adults and older people receiving care and support services through the not-for-profit sector.


helptheaged.uk