Advice to give families visiting someone in a care home

Helping families to stay connected to their loved one who has moved into a care home.

In this blog, we'll discuss the advice you can give families when visiting someone in a care home, perhaps for the first time. 

As someone working in the care sector, whether a manager, a care assistant or a director, you will probably have experienced how difficult and delicate the transition can sometimes be for new residents coming into the home. During that initial period of settling in, there may be some challenges for the person in question around getting to know their new surroundings, the new people they will meet, and generally entering a different phase of their lives.  

There can be a lot of emotion around moving into a care home for everyone involved, so it’s important that you do everything you can to help manage that transition to ensure long-term happiness and peace of mind for both the resident and their loved ones. One of the most crucial components of helping a new resident to settle in is ensuring they have regular visits from their loved ones. 

The benefits of regular visits from loved ones for residents 

Apart from helping to ease the transition into their new surroundings, regular visits from loved ones can help to: 

• Reduce feelings of isolation or abandonment while offering a chance of emotional continuity. 

• Help to maintain and strengthen the bond they have in the context of a new routine and setting 

• Ease any potential worries that loved ones might have about the care their loved one might receive – if they see for themselves that their loved one is receiving person-centred care, their minds will be put at rest. 

• Help to forge the bonds between families and everyone working in the care setting, to help foster a wider sense of community within the home. 

Regulatory compliance 

It’s also important to remember that regulations around residents receiving visitors are becoming more and more robust. So, not only is it important from a wellbeing and quality of life point of view to ensure they have regular visitors where possible, it is also required by you as a care provider to do so in order to adhere to regulatory requirements. 

Advice to give families who are visiting someone in a care home, perhaps for the first time 

Ensuring that families are involved in the day-to-day lives of those living in care homes is one of the main factors of promoting enhanced resident experience, and one of the best ways to do this is by investing in ResHub, which is an intuitive, fully integrated platform that connects families, residents and care staff.  

Through modules such as Engagement & Communication Management, ResHub ensures that staff can share moments captured through photos and videos as well as messages to the families of those living in care. This provides a greater and more meaningful insight into the daily journey that their loved one's experience within your service. 

To find out more information about ResHub, just click here to book a consultation and speak with one of our experts. 

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