What impact is the coronavirus having on long term care and care homes?

The UK Care Guide carried out a snap survey to see what impact the UK coronavirus crisis has had on attitudes towards elderly care. 

Since the start of the crisis, one obvious change in user behaviour we saw on our site was the drop, in the region of 40%, of people looking for care homes.  Whilst the reasons for this may have seen obvious, particularly with all the news around how the coronavirus was impacting care homes, we were keen to see what longer-term impact this may have.

As you would expect the coronavirus has had a huge impact on how people view care homes with 93% of respondents saying the coronavirus has put them off using a home for a loved one.

Interestingly, we may also be seeing a behavioural and culture change in the UK with 34% of people now actively looking at moving their elderly loved ones into their own home rather than a care home.  It will be interesting to see how this develops over time. 

Some of the key stats coming out of our survey, the details of which you can see below are:

  • 87% of people are actively delaying moving a loved one into a care home 
  • 93% of people are put off using care homes for a loved one is because of the coronavirus
  • 53% of people are currently not looking at using a care home in the longer term
  • 34% are going to look to move their loved ones in with them rather than a care home
  • 97% of people do not think the government has done enough to protect care home residents

The survey questions

1 – Are you actively delaying moving a loved one into a care home?

  • Yes – 87%
  • No  – 10%
  • I am not sure what I will do – 3%

2 – Where you are delaying moving a loved one into care, what is the reason?

  • Coronavirus – 93%
  • Cost- 6%
  • Other – 1%

3 – In the longer term, do you think you will use a care home for a loved one?

  • Yes – 47%
  • No – 53%

4 – Where you don’t intend to use a care home, what will you do as an alternative?

  • Move my loved ones into my home – 34%
  • Use home care – 43%
  • Use a permanent live-in carer – 23%

5 – Do you think the government has done enough to protect care home residents?

  • Yes – 3%
  • No – 97%

Notes: This survey was taken online between 1 May and 23 May 2020 and includes responses from 1,565 people.