Notice to leave, or care that isn’t safe
A letter has arrived giving notice, or you have watched something happen that you cannot unsee. Both situations feel like they need an immediate move. Usually they need something else first: a written challenge, the right people told, and a move done properly rather than quickly.
When this stops being a complaint and becomes safeguarding
There is a line, and it is worth naming it. A complaint is about care that is poor. Safeguarding is about an adult who is being abused or neglected, or is at risk of it. The two go to different places and move at different speeds.
If you think someone is being harmed, contact the adult safeguarding team at the local council today. You do not need proof and you do not need to be a relative. If there is immediate danger, ring 999.
If the care is poor rather than dangerous — late calls, missed medication, rudeness, laundry going missing, nobody answering the phone — that is a complaint, and complaints have a process that works better than most families expect.
- Unexplained bruising, injuries, or fear of a particular member of staff
- Someone left in soiled clothing or bedding
- Significant unexplained weight loss or dehydration
- Medication not given, or given to the wrong person
- Money or possessions going missing
- Someone being restrained, shut in, or over-sedated
What to do in the first 48 hours
Read the contract, not the letter
Find the notice clause. How much notice is required, on what grounds, and what is payable. A great many notices do not actually comply with the contract they are given under.
Write to the registered manager
Ask for the specific reasons in writing, the evidence behind them, what was tried before notice was served, and what would need to change for the notice to be withdrawn. Ask for a meeting. Keep it factual.
Tell the local authority the same day
Whether or not they fund the placement. Say that a placement is ending, that you are asking for an urgent needs assessment, and that you expect them to meet assessed needs. Get a reference number.
Ask for a fresh needs assessment
If the home says it can no longer meet needs, then the assessed needs have changed — which means the assessment is out of date, and possibly the funding basis with it. This is often where Continuing Healthcare should have been screened and was not.
Only then start looking
With an up-to-date picture of needs, not with the fear of a deadline. If the notice period is too short for a proper search, say so in writing and ask for an extension.
Where each concern actually goes
The registered manager
First, in writing, always. Every other route will ask whether you have raised it with the provider, and the answer needs to be yes with a date attached.
The local authority
For safeguarding, and for their duty to meet assessed needs. They are the ones who have to act if a placement ends and the person still needs care.
The Care Quality Commission
The regulator for England. It cannot resolve your individual complaint, but it does want to hear about poor or unsafe care, and it uses what it is told to decide where to inspect.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman
Once the council’s or the provider’s complaints process has finished. It looks at complaints about both councils and independent care providers, including self-funded placements.
The integrated care board
If the placement is NHS-funded through Continuing Healthcare, complaints go through the NHS route rather than the council’s.
Us, if it helps
We are independent and we do not take commission from any home. That means we can look at whether the notice is defensible without having an interest in where someone moves to.
Why moving quickly is usually the wrong instinct
When a home gives notice, the instinct is to find somewhere else immediately — partly from panic, partly from pride. It is worth resisting for a fortnight if the risk allows.
Moving an older person carries its own risk. Disorientation after a move is common and, for someone with dementia, can be significant and lasting. A rushed choice made in a fortnight is also the choice mostlikely to fail again, which means a second move.
There is also a funding consequence. A move made under pressure is a move made without an up-to-date assessment, which is exactly when top-ups get agreed that should never have been requested, and when Continuing Healthcare goes unscreened for another year.
Take the extension. Ask for the assessment. Move once, properly.
- Has a fresh needs assessment been done since things changed?
- Has anyone screened for NHS Continuing Healthcare?
- Can the new home evidence how it will meet the needs the last one could not?
- Is a top-up being asked for, and was an affordable alternative offered?
- What is the notice period in the new contract, and on what grounds?
- Who is signing — and are they signing as attorney rather than personally?
Questions about notice and unsafe care
Can a care home simply give notice and make someone leave?
A home can end a placement under the terms of its contract, and most contracts allow it with notice — commonly 28 days. But it cannot discharge someone into nowhere. If the council is funding or has been asked to, it has a duty to meet assessed needs, and that duty does not pause because a home has served notice.
What are the usual reasons given?
Most often that the home can no longer meet the person’s needs, that behaviour has become unmanageable, or that fees are unpaid. The first two are worth testing. Needs rarely change overnight, and a home that accepted someone eight weeks ago should be able to explain what has changed since.
How do we challenge a notice?
In writing, quickly, and to two places at once: the home’s registered manager, asking for the specific reasons and the evidence behind them, and the local authority, telling them a placement is ending and asking what they intend to do about it. Ask for a fresh needs assessment. Keep every reply.
What if the care itself is not safe?
Raise it with the registered manager in writing first, because the regulator will ask whether you have. If it is serious, or if it involves abuse or neglect, contact the local authority safeguarding team the same day. The Care Quality Commission cannot investigate an individual complaint, but it does want to know, and what you tell it feeds into inspection.
Should we move someone straight away if we are worried?
Only if the risk is immediate. Moving an older person, particularly someone with dementia, carries real risk of its own — disorientation, decline, and sometimes a placement that turns out worse. Where the risk is serious but not immediate, it is usually better to get safeguarding involved and hold the placement while a proper move is arranged.
Do we still have to pay during the notice period?
Usually yes, under the contract, unless the home is in breach of it. If you believe the home has failed to provide what it agreed to, say so in writing and keep paying under protest rather than simply stopping — stopping payment tends to hand the home the argument.
Take it further
How to complain effectively
The order to complain in, and what to write at each stage.
Care needs assessment
What it is, why it matters, and how to ask for one.
Visiting a care home
What to look at, what to ask, and what the tour will not show you.
Should the NHS be paying?
Changing needs are often the moment this should be re-screened.
You don’t need to know which service you need.
Just tell us what’s happening.
No pressure. No care-provider commissions. Just a conversation about what may help.