Non-Profit Consortium Raises Awareness of Alternative Elderly Care Options

A group of live-in care providers has pooled their resources and expertise to achieve their common goal of improving the quality of care for older people in the UK.

The aim of the Live-In Care Hub is to educate and inform families about elderly care choices; and, in particular, highlight the alternatives to residential care homes. Too often older people who have become ill or frail believe their only choice is to be "packed off" to a residential care home; a belief that many in social services and the major care home providers do little to dispel.

But care homes are not the only option and the motivation behind the Live-In Care Hub is research which revealed that 97% of elderly people don't want to move to a residential care home when they become unable to cope alone.

The Live-In Care Hub is a not-for-profit organisation and this strategic alliance has enabled them to commission research, conduct polls and combine data to better understand and inform public opinion and knowledge about care home alternatives.

Dominique Kent, Joint Founder of the Live-In Care Hub, commented, "Better health care standards in the western world mean we are all living longer, but this generates its own issues in the elderly population. Living longer doesn't always mean having a good quality of life.

But there is overwhelming evidence that one-to-one care at home improves the health and wellbeing of the vast majority of people. The option of live-in care – where a professional carer looks after someone in the familiar surroundings of their own home – provides a vastly superior quality of life than a single room in a care home with minimal one-to-one contact.

I would urge anyone considering care to look at all options – never assume your only choice is a care home."