The closure of care homes for older people: relatives’ and residents’ experiences and views of the closure process

<p>This paper describes relatives’, informal carers’ and residents’ views about their experience of care home closure and their recommendations for how the process might be better managed. The research was part of a larger study that investigated the way in which independent care homes for older people are closed from the perspective of those involved. A case study approach was used. Interviews were conducted with people connected to eight care home closures. The homes were in five local authorities, ranged in size, were mainly residential but included a nursing and a dual registered home and closed for business related reasons in 2002.

<p><p><p>Ten residents and 28 relatives and informal carers linked to the case study home closures were interviewed. To capture a wide range of experiences relatives and informal carers with recent experience of a home closure were also invited to take part via national and local carer associations and groups, and a local care home and day centre. The further seven relatives recruited in this way told us about more extreme closure situations, which it would have difficult to find out about via case studies. Overall we gathered information about or from 43 residents of homes in seven authorities.