The older person has a right to continue to make decisions about personal aspects of his or her daily life; financial affairs and possessions; to maintain his or her personal independence, which includes recognition of personal responsibility for his or her own actions or choices including those within which there is a degree of personal risk.

Entering a nursing home can be, and usually is, traumatic for the older person and their family. Many raw emotions are experienced. Some are fortunate to have time to plan the move to a nursing home and have the opportunity to visit a number of homes and make choices.

Others are less fortunate in that the move to a nursing home follows a stay in an acute hospital and the transfer to a nursing home is arranged by hospital staff in order to free up a bed which is urgently needed.

When transfer to a nursing home is arranged at short notice there is often very little choice of home, particularly in larger urban areas. Older people are frequently placed in whatever home has a vacancy. This is often one which is at a distance from their family home and their friends.

Family members are justifiably unhappy if they have not been fully involved in selecting a nursing home for an elderly parent. Discharges arranged at short notice also lead to poor communications about care plans and can compromise care.

We must stop talking about, and treating, older people as if they had no voice or opinions of their own. We must recognise their ability, and their right, to make choices and that they must be given the necessary time and information to enable them to make informed decisions.

A nursing home which accepts an older person must provide for the person’s health and safety needs. This is best done in partnership with the resident and taking the residents views fully into account. A nursing home, residents’ and their family members must accept that the individual resident has the right to make free choices and associated with these choices are risks.