Enter and View Findings: Care homes in Rye and Rother

Healthwatch East Sussex carried out a Listening Tour in Rye and surrounding areas in autumn 2023. Feedback was gained in a variety of ways and from a variety of sources about people’s experiences and views of health and social care. To ensure the Listening Tour heard views from as wide a range of people as possible, it was felt important to gain feedback from people in care homes in the area. Therefore, the findings from this Enter and View programme of visits to care homes contribute to and sit alongside the conclusions of the wider Listening Tour.  They visited 19 care homes in total.

The residents Healhwatch met stated that they did not have any significant issues about access to health and social care services, with the exception of dentistry. They said that they can see the GP or someone from their GP practice, and in the majority of care homes there was regular contact from the surgery, often through weekly visits. They liked face-to-face meetings, and this is what generally happens. A few care homes had a dedicated phone number and email for the GP surgery, and this enabled quicker and better access to healthcare services and support. Two examples were provided where residents with a learning disability and autism experienced challenges to accessing healthcare at hospitals. This could be explored further, including whether the local hospitals have any special support services for people with a learning disability and autism or how they are adapted to be more inclusive for those with these conditions. 

Feedback from care home staff was that people with a learning disability and autism had not been given priority for the Covid booster vaccine. Residents also said that they access the community regularly and most said that there were no problems about this. 

The majority of care homes had their own transport and so this was used to enable residents to go out. A few care services were aware of the Flexibus service, but most were not. Care homes for people with a learning disability and autism reported that some local authorities provide additional funding specifically to enable the service to support people to access the community, whilst others did not provide such additional funding. 

The biggest challenge for care homes in rural areas is the lack of an effective public transport system. This has its biggest impact in terms of staff recruitment, limiting the pool of available staff. However, some care homes had taken proactive steps, such as providing additional transport, to ensure that they were able to recruit and retain staff at their establishments.

The report contains six recommendations