Care at home

Healthwatch Leeds undertook research into people’s experience of homecare. This was a follow up to previous research they had undertaken in 2016 and 2017 and enabled them to feed into the redesign of the new homecare contract in Leeds. They had 185 responses to their survey. 

Overall satisfaction levels had dropped significantly, compared to their previous research in 2016 and 2017. Almost a quarter of people said they did not know all the care workers that visited them, and only a quarter of respondents said they had a key worker.

While many respondents said that care workers came at days and times that they need them, over a quarter said that they were not always arriving on time.

Most people knew what the care workers should be doing. Over half of respondents said they ‘always’ do what they are meant to do. Half of respondents told Healthwatch that they were not informed when there were any changes to their regular care.

Almost a fifth of respondents had not been involved or given the option to be involved in planning the care.  There were significant variations in how and when reviews of care were carried out.  Several potential safeguarding concerns were highlighted while carrying out this project.

There were 12 recommendations covering staffing and timeliness, communication and systems and monitoring