Rest home shoppers want more information – survey

Participants in our recent survey welcomed on-line rest home audit information but their comments show more work is needed.

The Ministry of Health is beginning to improve consumer information on rest homes by publishing summary audit reports online. These currently cover about 19 percent of institutions, and include a narrative about each one and six colour-coded boxes indicating ability to meet national standards. 

We ran a two-week survey to ask older people and their families if this information is useful when ‘shopping’ for a rest home.  

Overall, survey participants seemed to feel the audit summaries are a good first step, with more satisfied than dissatisfied users. However, their comments show more work is needed.

41% said the audit summaries provide the kind of information they want, 31% felt they did not, and a very high 28% were neutral. Over half (51%) found it difficult or very difficult to compare homes.

In the Standards Assessment section, 56% of survey participants said the colour-coded scores were easy or very easy to understand, and 30% had difficulty.  

Users commented on the lack of consistency between summaries, and some frustration with jargon, abbreviations, and insufficient information about problems and resolutions. Some found difficulty comparing text with the colour codes; for example some negative scores were countered by positive comments and vice-versa. 

Respondents agreed strongly about the information they wanted to see, with 80 to 90% wanting information on qualified staff availability, staff turnover, and actual residents' comments.  They also wanted to know what's good about a home – not just the problems – and provided a wide range of suggestions for additional information that would help them to select a good rest home. 

> VISIT HealthCert's Rest Home Audit Summaries page. (Reports can be viewed as web pages or downloaded as MS Word files.)

About the audit reports

New Zealand law requires that all rest homes show they provide safe and reasonable care by meeting set standards. All rest homes are 'inspected' or 'audited' against these standards and are given a certificate which lasts for 1 to 5 years. Half way through this time, they are audited again.

The information on the Ministry of Health website are summaries of the reports made about these audits. 

Report

>READ the Auditor-General's report on previous audits 

>READ what we're saying

More information

>READ more about residential care

>READ excerpts from Consumer's 'Failing to care'

>READ excerpts from Consumer's 'Rest Home Roulette'

>DETAIL More detailed information about the auditing process is available at the Ministry of Health website.