Home support/care services in Coventry: user experiences

We gathered the lived experiences of older people who received home support/care services in Coventry and members of their families.

We did this because Coventry City Council had awarded new contracts to 7 home support providers in July 2017. Our aim was to enable people receiving these services to talk about their experiences and any concerns.

We interviewed 28 people – 17 by a visit to their home and 9 by phone interview. We ran an open public survey (both paper and online) and 20 people responded. We spent over 70 hours of staff and volunteer time conducting home visits and phone interviews.

We also met with each of the seven Home Support providers to gather information about how their services run and any issues they experience in providing care.

We made 5 recommendations to Coventry City Council related to: supporting training and skills within the home care sector; improving service user feedback routes; ensuring there is choice of care provider; creating opportunities for joint sharing and discussion between home support agency representatives and with wider social care staff; and running developmental sessions for providers to explore good practice. 

The report includes an action plan form Coventry City Council. We also ran a workshop with Home Support agencies to consider the findings.