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Home Blog The Hidden Cost of Inaccessible Care
Vision loss in long-term care isn’t always obvious but the consequences are.
August 12, 2025
Inaccessible care environments generate hidden costs that don’t appear on a balance sheet: staff time drained on workarounds, residents frustrated by small daily barriers, and families stuck in the middle, trying to bridge the gap.
When blind or low-vision residents can’t independently access basic information like menus, product labels, or schedules, the burden quietly shifts onto caregivers and loved ones which slows operations, creates friction, and undermines trust.
In this blog, we explore four key areas where inaccessibility exacts a daily toll. We’ll also share how accessible tools like Be My Eyes’ Service AI, Service Connect, and Private Groups can reverse these trends, restore autonomy for residents and unlock operational efficiency for care teams.
Every day, staff may find themselves acting as impromptu sighted assistants: reading signage, articulating schedules, or troubleshooting appliances for their blind care home residents. Sometimes amounting to dozens of such small detours in every shift, it is easy to see how they can eat into care time. Some administrators note that when blind residents repeatedly need help with simple things, it “pulls caregivers away from their core responsibilities of care.”
In practice, if a resident can independently use an app to read a menu, or a notice, it saves the staff member several minutes and avoids redundant calls later. Over weeks and months, these savings accumulate. By contrast, doing nothing forces expensive paid staff to complete tasks that volunteers or even artificial intelligence (AI) technology could handle, which is an inefficient use of skilled caregivers’ time.
“I don’t think staff always realise how much I can’t see. They talk to me while they’re doing things across the room or hand me something without saying what it is.” – Resident
“You’d like to think they’d tell you what’s going on, but I miss a lot because notices are on the wall or they just assume I’ll know.” —Resident
For residents, the constant need to ask for help can be discouraging and draining, and the replies can be frustrating.. No one wants to feel helpless over everyday things. Blind residents who frequently rely on assistance for ordinary tasks can become embarrassed or demoralized. When residents can’t even check the day’s menu or weather without help, trust in the care environment suffers. They begin to see every small inconvenience as a limitation on their freedom. Lower satisfaction leads to complaints and turnover – both of staff (from burnout) and clients (seeking better care elsewhere).
Families notice this loss of independence.
Instead of the loved one thriving in care, they see them continually dependent on staff. Concerned family members often step in as ad hoc advocates, regularly calling the home for updates or pushing to have information conveyed multiple times.
This constant involvement, though well-intentioned, creates friction. Staff can feel second-guessed for every detail, and families remain anxious about whether their relative is receiving full information.
On a systems level, inaccessible practices slow everything down. Admitting a new blind resident means extra orientation time: staff must explain routines, menus, and paperwork over and over.
Schedules may need to be read aloud repeatedly. When forms are hand-transcribed or devices reset by sighted staff, human errors creep in. Moreover, inconsistent workarounds create gaps: one aide might do one approach, another might do something else. This variability hampers standardization. Over time, the aggregate inefficiency – repetitive explanations, corrective assistance, and family follow-ups – can delay care delivery, extend discharge times, and generally raise operating costs. In short it’s a hidden drag on productivity.
By investing in inclusive technology, you can turn this inefficiency into effective value-added services..
The Be My Eyes Customer Accessibility Suite was built to address issues exactly like these.
Service AI: a visual interpreter that can read menus, forms, letters, describe the photo of a loved one, and more using the resident’s smartphone camera.
Service Connect: enables direct one-way video calls to trained support agents for real-time visual assistance.
Together, they reduce the need for constant staff intervention while giving residents a sense of control over their environment.
Care homes can also enable Private Groups, allowing family members to step in as trusted remote helpers, offering peace of mind to families and reducing the frequency of calls to staff for routine questions.
Imagine a resident using Service AI to independently check their daily schedule, or a family member helping locate a missing item through a Private Group call. A nurse no longer has to stop medication rounds to read or find something because the resident can do it themselves with a tap.
The result?
A care experience that’s not only more dignified and empowering, but also more sustainable. Learn how accessible support transforms care.
Download our free eBook or request a demo today to see Be My Eyes in action.
Resident quotes extracted from Older People’s Experiences of Sight Loss in Care Home – authored by the Centre for Health Research at the University of Brighton in partnership with Thomas Pocklington Trust.
