Nursing Homes

Nursing homes have a higher ratio of staff to residents than residential care homes because the residents are less able than clients living in a residential care home. They need more help with their 'activities of daily living' such as personal hygiene, going to the toilet, bathing, etc. Some will need to be assisted with their feeding and drinking.

Clients who are admitted to nursing homes need nursing care. In all nursing homes the residents will be suffering from different illnesses and conditions.

Some people enjoy being in a home caring for a large number of residents. Others prefer to live and be cared for, in smaller ones. There are advantages and disadvantages in both cases.

The Larger Nursing Homes

Larger homes have 50 beds or more. It would be difficult and unusual to have this number of beds plus dining rooms, lounges, toilets and bathrooms, etc all on the ground floor. In view of this there may be two, three or possibly more floors depending on the number of elderly residents they care for.

The residents would be taken to their floor by lift. The largest homes may have two lifts. Access to each floor is also provided by stairways.

In some homes, particularly the more modern ones, the floors are complete with a small kitchen area, lounge and dining area, bathrooms, toilets, nurses' station and treatment room in addition to the bedrooms.

All nursing homes, whether large or small, have communal rooms for the use of residents and their visitors.

Smaller Nursing Homes

Some homes are designed to be a single storey building, depending on the number of residents they have been built to accommodate.