Types of care setting
Types of care setting
This series aims to support pharmacy teams in applying a person-centred approach to delivering medicines optimisations in care homes. When consulting with people living in care homes, it is important to remember that this is their home. The treatment and care offered should be personalised, with an individuals needs and preferences taken into consideration.
This series will focus on residential and nursing care homes for older people:
- Care homes without nursing (residential homes)
- Care homes with nursing (nursing homes).
The most common residential homes are for older people. They vary in size, from those with a few people to larger homes with more than a hundred people living in them.
Homes that provide personal care (also known as residential homes) do not have to have registered nurses on site 24 hours a day, but district nurses or community nurses may visit people if they have specific needs – e.g., for wound care, catheter care or insulin administration.
Care homes with nursing care must have registered nurses available 24 hours a day to ensure that the full needs of the person using the service are met. They may also provide specialist care for people with a specific illness or who are at the end of life.
Some care homes have dual registration and the level of care provided will depend on which unit within the home the person lives in. All services may provide care to people with a wide age range. There are also homes for adults with learning disabilities, which tend to be smaller units.
Many care homes are part of a larger organisation that runs several homes. The organisations often have a national contract with a pharmacy to provide pharmacy services so that the standard operating procedures (SOPs) can be consistent throughout. Other homes may be independent, with the owner also being the manager and perhaps living onsite. Some homes are run as charities, while others as businesses.
Anyone who lives in a care home should have a designated GP and pharmacy, ideally one GP and one pharmacy for all residents in the same care home,1 although if the care home is large there may be more than one GP who supports each section. Occasionally people will choose to stay with their own GP.