Nursing Homes in Fleetwood

Fleetwood has 3 CQC registered nursing homes. 1 is rated Good, 1 Outstanding, 1 Requires improvement. All 3 were last inspected more than three years ago.

Source: Care Quality Commission register, kept up to date as ratings change.

What nursing care in Fleetwood involves and what to look for

The point where residential care stops being enough

The threshold is usually clinical rather than practical. Each of the three homes listed here is registered to have qualified nurses on shift, which allows wound care, management of unstable conditions, feeding support and care at the end of life to be handled on the premises instead of through repeated hospital admissions. Personal care carries on alongside that: washing, dressing, medication, meals and company. The question to put to every manager is how many nurses are rostered overnight and at weekends, because that is where cover thins first and where families notice the difference.

Three homes, three different judgements

Rossall holds a rating of Outstanding, Lakelands Lodge a rating of Good, and Fleetwood Nursing Home has been rated Requires Improvement. A spread as wide as that makes the reports worth reading rather than the labels worth trusting, in both directions. An Outstanding judgement describes what inspectors found on particular days and is not a guarantee about every shift since, while a home that requires improvement may have been marked down on governance or record keeping rather than on the care itself. Check the date of each inspection before drawing conclusions.

What a visit reveals

Call in during the late afternoon or early evening, when staffing is thinnest and little can be arranged for your benefit. Listen for whether call bells are answered promptly, watch whether residents are spoken with rather than about, and ask whether the nurse in charge can describe the people in their care without consulting a file. Ask how care plans are revised when a condition deteriorates and how quickly a general practitioner or specialist can be brought in.

Getting an assessment and sorting out funding in Fleetwood

The assessment to ask for

A care needs assessment is the proper first step and is open to anyone who appears to need care and support, whatever their savings. It should establish whether nursing care rather than residential care is the appropriate form of support, which matters here because that judgement determines both the type of home and the way the fees are made up. Contacting Hampshire County Council Adult Social Care starts the process, and anyone providing unpaid care can request a carer assessment of their own at the same time.

Why nursing fees have more than one payer

Once a registered nursing need is confirmed, the health service pays a contribution towards the nursing part of the fee, and that payment goes directly to the home whether or not the placement is otherwise publicly funded. A financial assessment then sets capital and income against the national thresholds, and the authority may meet part of the remainder where capital falls below the upper threshold, its share tapering as capital rises. Above that point the balance is normally met privately.

Getting the figures in writing

Ask each home to confirm its weekly fee in writing and to state clearly whether the nursing contribution has already been deducted from the figure quoted, since that one point causes more confusion than anything else. Check what sits outside the weekly charge, what notice is given of an increase, and what happens if a resident's needs rise further.

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