A vital Warwickshire County Council service enabling people to stay in their homes as long as possible has been praised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).The Reablement South team, based in Leam...
A vital Warwickshire County Council service enabling people to stay in their homes as long as possible has been praised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
The Reablement South team, based in Leamington, has maintained its ‘Good’ rating following an inspection that took place last month.
Reablement South is the county council’s in-house reablement service covering the geographical area of south Warwickshire. The team helps people living in their own home who have been discharged from hospital, or are already in the community to regain the skills for independent living.
The team help people regain their independence after an illness or injury and enable customers to stay in their homes as long as possible. They do this by supporting them with help moving around the home, preparing meals, taking medication and personal care.
The team supported 1,351 customers last year and managed to save an average of 7.2 hours recovery time from initial assessment to the customer regaining their independence.
This includes customers such as 92 year old Margaret (not her real name) who had recently been discharged from hospital. Margaret needed help dressing, making breakfast, making her bed and opening curtains and blinds. She also slept downstairs as she was unable to use the stairs due to a bad knee.
Following intervention by the reablement team Margaret was able to her perform her own personal care and dress herself after two weeks and able to make her own breakfast after four weeks. After week five the team installed a stair lift enabling her to go upstairs to bed. By this point Margaret was now preparing herself for bed without any assistance and able to make herself a hot drink, as well as closing her curtains and blinds. By the end of her care Margaret was fully independent and had regained her confidence.
The CQC's inspection was carried out under Section 60 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and formed part of CQC's regulatory function to ensure care providers meet their legal obligations; observe the quality of care offered; and provide a rating under the Care Act 2014. This was the first inspection since Reablement South located to their new offices: the team were last visited by the CQC in 2016.
CQC visited Reablement South’s offices in Heathcote House at Leamington Rehabilitation Hospital on 6 September 2018 and undertook a review comprising five key lines of enquiry, which were:
- Is the service safe?
- Is the service effective?
- Is the service caring?
- Is the service responsive?
- Is the service well-led?
The inspection found the service to be ‘Good’ in all five of the areas.
Overall CQC formed a positive view of Reablement South. It surveyed customers, staff and managers and received largely positive feedback. The inspector was satisfied that the service was safe, effective and that staff had the skills and knowledge to carry out their roles well.
The inspector also noted that the service was caring, with 100% of customers saying the team were kind and considerate. Staff were found to be satisfied in their jobs and CQC recorded that it was evident ‘staff were passionate about providing a quality service and were committed to improving people’s lives’. CQC also found Reablement South to be well-led and that staff believed the leadership to be open, honest and accessible.
In terms of areas for improvement, the inspection found differing expectations from customers on call timings: some reported that they received a call from reablement staff at the same time everyday while others said a visit could be anytime during a two hour window. It was explained by the team that the service was ‘non-time specific’ due to the need to be flexible in order to respond when someone was discharged from hospital at late notice.
Portfolio Holder for Adult Social Care and Health Cllr Les Caborn said:
“The is a great outcome and we’re very pleased with the rating given to us by CQC. Our staff work exceptionally hard to offer a high quality service to people. It is very pleasing to see we have maintained our “Good” rating overall as a service and in all of the five domains since the last inspection in 2016.
We accept the recommendations made in the report about call timings and will continue to improve our service in order to keep residents in Warwickshire safe and maintain their independence.”A summary of the report can be found here.