Care at home

This project was a follow up to the homecare surveys that we carried out in early 2016. Following the previous homecare report key areas for improvement were identified and recommendations made to address these.

Healthwatch Leeds worked in partnership with Leeds City Council (LCC) to repeat the telephone surveys to see what changes had been made and if things had improved for service users and their families. Healthwatch Leeds spoke to 134 service users and/or their families about the homecare service that they received.

Healthwatch Leeds recognise that the previous year was a period of transition and change for the homecare providers and service users. It is important to note that this can have an additional impact on people's experiences of the service that they receive. We received a mixed response to the questions. Many people talked of the positive experience of the care they received and how well they were treated by the carers. However we also received comments about areas which need addressing and improving such as communication with the care agencies

Listed are a summary of the key findings of this survey: Many respondents had praise for the care workers, but criticised the agency management as being unresponsive, poor at communication and disorganised; respondents valued the positive relationships built up with their regular care staff; there is a lack of consistency in the quality of care provided and this can be dependent on which carers are in attendance; many respondents' experiences are negatively affected by having so many different carers; some respondents reported issues with carers running late or rushing, which had an impact on the quality of their care; there were issues with service users having to fit in with what was available to them rather than accessing a service that is planned with their needs and preferences; agencies do not always appear to have an effective procedure for checking that the planned care is provided; some family members report feeling obliged to fill in and do the job themselves, as a result of variability in care; the quality of care provided can be dependent on service users and families being capable of challenge and questioning the service provision; the vast majority of people told Healthwatch Leeds they felt they were treated with dignity and respect by most of their carers.

The report includes 5 recommendations.