Reviews are a fundamental part of our life now, offering a glimpse into how existing or past users of products and services have found them.  Whilst we’re well used to using reviews of hotels and restaurants prior to blessing places with our presence, reviews are also seeping into more unusual places.

I wrote earlier this week about the increasing number of reviews left by prisoners about life on the inside.  The reviews are invaluable because of an inherent lack of transparency into what life is like behind bars.

There is often a similar lack of transparency into life in a care home, and the problems this presents were highlighted in a recent McKinsey report.  It revealed the benefits of transparency in terms of accountability, choice and productivity.

Transparency in care homes

This desire for greater transparency has seen the launch of Care Selector, which aims to lift the lid on life in a care home.

The site was launched by founder Jamie Cole with the intent of both shedding some light on how the 2.2 million people in the UK that live in care homes get on, and also to help the next generation as they enter such facilities.

As the population ages, more and more people are expected to require care services in the coming years.  With budgets under considerable strain, it is probably fair to say that service quality is not uniform across the board.

Such variation in quality is slightly more acceptable if people have access to the required information to make informed choices, with the market then hopefully kicking in and weeding out the bad facilities and encouraging the good.

The website is pretty straight forward to use.  You search for the services you require and the location you are in.  You are then shown a list of suitable suppliers in that area.  You can see an overview rating for each facility, and add attractive ones to a comparison tool for a more detailed report.

With western demographics heading only one way, these kind of tools are going to be crucial in helping us make the right choices for the elderly among us, and also to help market forces to improve what is a vital sector of society.