Our recent report, How families find and choose care, got to the heart of how people in the UK make what can be one of the most difficult decisions in family life. In collaboration with Care England, we surveyed 1,000 families who have recently organised care for a loved one.
We found that the factors shaping care decisions are often led more by emotion than by formal frameworks. And that families enter the system less informed than we allow for. We’re exploring the four resounding themes from our report, and how the sector can respond to them.
A family has already started to gather information on your service, before you ever hear from them. In the evaluation stages, trust is built through your online reputation, word-of-mouth recommendations and service reviews.
And their perception of the care your service provides starts to take shape from the very first interaction. That may be a phone call, home care visit or even a chatbot on your website. Providers who are responsive, communicate clearly and make care feel visible early are more likely to convert enquiries into long-term relationships.
Families aren’t looking for perfection, but conversations that feel honest and grounded in the real experience of the care their loved one will receive. Providers of home care particularly need to focus on making care visible before it begins. Explaining services clearly and using technology can help reduce the uncertainty that families may feel and show that the care you deliver is trustworthy.
We refer to the social care sector as a market, but that’s rarely how families experience it. Our research shows they enter the sector feeling overwhelmed and without the necessary knowledge of care to know what their loved one needs.
Only 3% of families described arranging care as straightforward. Meanwhile, 61% of families described feeling overwhelmed, anxious, frustrated or stressed during the process of finding care. And just 37% of respondents felt “very confident” about the type of care needed.
For many families, the decision to seek care begins during a period of change or even crisis. Nearly half (47%) said they started looking for care because their loved one was struggling with daily activities. The urgency of the situation can make the process particularly overwhelming, especially when coupled with a limited understanding of how the care system works or even how to access it.
That emotional pressure fundamentally shapes the decision-making process. When there’s a lack of understanding of the system, families rely on trust signals like clear communication and visibility of care to help them feel more confident about the process.
When families begin researching care options, information they can quickly interpret, reputation and social proof influence their decisions more than formal frameworks.
Our report found that 55% of families searching for care use the NHS or local authority directories as a starting point, 40% use online searches, and 38% rely on word-of-mouth recommendations.
What’s striking is that only 19% said they use inspection reports, such as the CQC, when researching providers. And when making a final decision, only around 11% said inspection reports were among the most important factors influencing their choice.
Instead, choosing care for a loved one is a much more intuitive process. Families rely on accessible information that conveys trust and familiarity, giving them confidence in the provider relationship.
Reputation was identified as the single most important factor influencing provider choice (30%), ahead of cost (25%), staff experience (24%) and location (24%).
97% of the families we spoke to said finding care was a difficult process. Organising care can be one of the hardest decisions a family makes, and there is a lot of pressure to get it right.
Deciding who to trust was the most common difficulty families faced, with 40% saying they struggled to identify a provider they trust. Closely followed by identifying a service that meets their loved one’s needs (38%). Meanwhile, 30% said they didn’t even know where to start.
Supporting families as early as possible in their care journey, through accessible information, guidance rooted in daily care and consistent communication can strengthen trust and create more stable care relationships over time.
Once care is in place, digital platforms like Log my Care with a built-in Family App can help prioritise communication and transparency, stopping families from feeling left in the dark and more likely to raise complaints or change providers.
Read the full report: “How families find and choose care”