Care Home Access Report – August 2026

18 August 2026

About this report

To better understand care homes’ experiences of access to health services, we surveyed care and residential homes across Wirral about the support they receive from GP services, dental services, community and specialist teams, Teletriage, hospital care, and the North West Ambulance Service. We received responses from 23 individual homes, representing 22.5% of Wirral’s care homes.

This report highlights what care homes told us is working well and where challenges remain in their relationships with, and access to, these services. Our full report includes a full breakdown for each service, as well as recommendations to help healthcare services better support residents and care homes.

Key themes

Several themes emerged consistently across the different services:

• Access to services can become more challenging when residents need urgent care, specialist or home-based support.
• Care homes identified communication and information-sharing as a recurring challenge across the health and care system.
• Waiting times and delays can affect both residents’ experiences and the ability of the home to coordinate care.
• There are positive experiences of strong relationships and continuity of care across the services.
• People with additional needs can experience barriers to accessing the support they need and any reasonable adjustments as they engage with certain healthcare services.
• A better understanding of care home settings and awareness training could improve collaboration.

What we heard

GP services

Many care homes told us that weekly ward rounds provide valuable support and help build strong relationships with GP teams. However, some homes also reported difficulties accessing appointments and getting support outside of these routine visits. Communication around medication changes and continuity of care were also raised as challenges.

Dental services

Dental access was one of the most significant concerns raised. Nearly all homes reported difficulties registering residents with NHS dentists or finding dental care appointments, particularly for people requiring home visits. Some homes described relying on private dental care or for residents to already have NHS dentist support prior to entering the home.

Community and specialist services

We heard positive feedback about several community teams, including district nursing, speech and language therapy, falls prevention and learning disability services. However, long referral times, delays in accessing support and challenges with mental health services, particularly out of hours support and advice, were recurring themes.

Teletriage

Many care homes valued Teletriage for its responsive advice, clinical support and continuity of care. Some homes expressed that remote assessments were lengthy to complete at times.

Hospital care

While care homes reported positive experiences with trusted assessors and many hospital staff, concerns were raised about communicating with wards, appropriate discharge arrangements and support for residents with learning disabilities and autism. There remain challenges regarding obtaining updates of inpatients, missing documentation, and medication issues following discharge.

Ambulance services

Many homes praised ambulance crews for their professionalism and communication. The main challenges related to response times during periods of high demand.

Recommendations

Based on the feedback received, we have made a number of recommendations to help improve care homes’ access to healthcare services, including:

• Creating clearer pathways and single points of contact for care homes within these services.
• Improving communication and information sharing between services and homes.
• Increasing awareness and understanding of care home settings among frontline staff.
• Developing dedicated domiciliary dental provision for care home residents.
• Improving hospital discharge processes and support for residents with learning disabilities and autism.

Read the full report below

We will be sharing the findings with commissioners, providers and partners across Wirral to help drive improvements and ensure care home residents receive the support they need.