Experiences of people living in housing with care

This is a report by Healthwatch Coventry. The project looks at people's experiences of Housing with Care. 

Housing with care is a class of residence where people receive varying levels of support to remain within their homes. Both the local authority and private providers are engaged in Coventry.

During the project 13 people were interviewed. 57 were spoken to through 9 focus groups. 3 people were spoken to in depth to hear more of their stories. This was a mix of residents and staff.

People were largely happy with the housing and support they received. There were some findings related to areas for improvement.

Areas for improvement:

• The difficulties getting a face-to-face meeting with a GP, and the length of time it took to get through to them on the phone.
• The difficulties in sometimes getting community health services to the schemes in a timely way when they were needed, for example community nurses to change bandages.
• There was sometimes an issue where different services did not communicate effectively with each other which led to services being delayed, e.g. Pharmacies and GPs.
• Social Services sometimes did not complete paperwork or provided incorrect information, that delayed discharges or referrals to the Housing with Care Schemes.
• The main issues appeared to be the communication between different services, in terms of discharge from hospital, paperwork and district nurses to treat residents for one off conditions. 

There are recommendations and follow up actions in this report.

1. Share with Adult Social Care housing with care managers and management.

2. Share with CQC.

3. Share with Community Health Teams and Coventry and Warwickshire Integrated Care Board.

4. Changes to health and care are being considered within the government’s 10-year health plan, Healthwatch Coventry will continue to make sure that everyone’s voice is heard in this process.

5. For services to look at improving communication and quicker responses from district nurses and social services to residents who live in housing with care schemes. 

6. To explore ways to improve access to dentistry within the homes, for local dentists and housing with care workers to work with people to help overcome their fears and encourage people to attend their dentists.