10. What choice of home do I have?

If you need NHS continuing inpatient care, it is up to the NHS where you will go to get the medical care you need. However, your wishes should be taken into account as much as they can.

If the council is paying for some or all of your care, you can, within certain limits, choose the home you want. However, if you are waiting to leave hospital to move into a home, and the one you want has no places in the near future, you may have to go to another one until there is a place for you.

Once the council decides to help pay for your place in a home, you should be given details of what it would normally expect to pay for a home that meets your needs (called the council's 'standard rate'). This rate should be realistic. The council cannot say it will pay no more than £200 a week, for example, if that amount could not give you the kind of care you need in your area.

You should be given a list of homes in the area that are within the council's price range. However, you can choose any home (including one outside your council's area, to be near your children, for example), as long as:

• it has a place available;
• it can meet your needs as they have been assessed; and
• it is willing to accept the council's terms and conditions (including, in general, the price).

If you cannot find a home within the price range that can meet your needs, the council should increase its limit. If it won't, you may need to complain.