Health & Care at Home

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Health & Care at Home's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Health & Care at Home is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.healthandcareathome.co.uk

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

36 | HEALTH AND CARE AT HOME

DrCliveAcraman, Managing

Director

“We are like a family”

– June P 2018

Health and Care at Home is a private company with a

growing reputation for delivering high-quality, premium

nursing and care services in the home of the people

that choose to use their service. Managing Director Dr Clive

Acraman enjoyed a long career in public service, spread across

children’s and adult’s services in social care and the NHS, prior

to leaving the NHS in 2015. Clive left the NHS because he

believed there was a better way to support people at home.

They are passionate about person centred care, and work

alongside the people who use their service, their family, friends

and community to understand their life history, values and

belief systems. This enables staff to empower their customers to

continue to be the people they have always been.

We are a highly experienced and professional team providing unique and

innovative care. Our services are provided in the comfort of our customers’ personal

residence. We have been successfully providing high-quality domiciliary health and

care services across Cornwall for three years. All our care staff are employed directly

by us. They are skilled, talented practitioners with experience of working within

a community setting and each holds a minimum Level 2 qualification in health

andcare.

In addition to our carers, we have a team of professional practitioners, registered

nurses, occupational therapists and social workers, all of whom are registered with

the Royal College of Nursing or Health and Care Professions Council.

FACTS ABOUT

HEALTH AND CARE AT HOME

»Managing Director:

DrCliveAcraman

»Founded in 2015

»Based in Newquay, Cornwall

»No. of employees: 20

»Services: Nursing, nursing

care, occupational therapy

assessments, palliative care,

end of life care, dementia

care, personal care, household

support, meal preparation and

assistance to attend community

based clubs and activities

»www.healthandcareathome.co.uk

Health and Care at

Home

37HEALTH AND CARE AT HOME |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2019

The team are available to support

our customers at any time, assessing

people while they are in hospital,

co-producing care plans, ensuring

their home is discharge ready with

the correct equipment in place

and assisting their discharge home

where necessary. Our occupational

therapists and registered nurses are

actively involved in establishing all

communication and links between

ourselves and the statutory services,

while our carers develop the

relationships that nurture positive,

high-quality and sustainable outcomes

alongside ourcustomers.

Our care planning process is overseen

by our professional practitioners.

Central to our success is our ability to

build and maintain relationships with

GP practices, community nurses and

other healthpractitioners.

All people living with temporary or

permanent health conditions receive

a full nursing assessment prior to our

service beginning, and this helps to

inform our care planning process.

With consent from the person we are

to care for or support, the outcome

of this, and regular nursing reviews,

is shared with other practitioners

involved with the person such as their

GP, community matron and district

nursing service. We believe this is

important to maintain accurate and

contemporaneous communication

between ourselves and the

statutoryservices.

What we do

All our staff are trained to listen

to our customers, to understand

what is important to them in terms

of their care and support and to

respond in a way that works for

them. We understand that a warm

smile and a chat are sometimes

more important than the tasks that

people need performed. Everything

we do is built on evidence-based

practice and focuses on building

excellent, enduring relationships with

the people we care for and support.

We understand the importance

of developing truly person-

centredpractices.

We have a minimum call time of one

hour. This allows us to support people

We support people so

they can stay in their

own home

Reablement,

supporting

people to be as

independent as

possible, for as

long as possible,

is central to

what we do

“

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

38 | HEALTH AND CARE AT HOME

at their own pace. We recognise that

tasks are important, but the person

is more important than the task,

and allowing people time enables

us to undertake our roles more

effectively. While we are with people

who use our service, we are happy

to support them in any way that is

safe. We are happy to offer them a

cafetière and read of the newspaper

first thing in the morning, or a full

English breakfast prepared for them

after the shower. We are also happy

to accompany our customers on

a holiday at home or abroad, and

of course support those coming to

Cornwall to enjoy their vacation. Put

simply, we will support any person

who uses our service with complex

nursing interventions, personal care,

domiciliary chores, shopping and

community activities.

One person who used our service,

June, had been advised by mainstream

services to move into a nursing home;

however, she refused to give up on

returning home. On discharge to her

own home, against advice from the

hospital, we began to work with her

privately. She had been in hospital for

eight months, but our carers supported

June alongside her family. June was

able to be nursed and cared for at her

own pace, and she was determined

not to be dependent on others all

of her life as she had been told she

would be. Gradually, June began to

feel stronger; she moved slowly from

requiring a hoist, to being able to

support herself, and new equipment

was introduced to allow June to bear

weight for the first time in a year

without assistance. Within five months

of returning home, June was walking

independently and no longer required

our services.

How we do it

Our talented team of professionals

and practitioners have the skills and

talents to support people living at

home with the most complex medical

conditions and to support planned

and co-ordinated hospital discharges.

We always undertake an assessment

of the person’s requirements and

their nursing, social and occupational

therapy needs. These assessments can

be undertaken in any setting, to allow

for the comfort and convenience of

our customers.

Once we have an understanding of

our customer’s health, care and social

requirements, we co-produce a care

plan, which explicitly states what we

are being asked to do, how we will

achieve it, where it will take place

and when it will be completed. These

personalised care and support plans

also explain who the person is, as

much of their life story as they wish

to share – names of family, friends

and key events help us to initiate

conversation and understand more

about the person we support. We

also pay close attention to what is

important to the people who use

our service and how they wish to be

supported. Our care and support plans

are very clear about how, where and

when the care will be administered.

Openness and transparency are

a crucial part of our process, and

our planning process ensuring the

service we provide is clear, supportive

andsafe.

Our talented

team of

professionals

and practitioners

have the skills

and talents to

support people

living at home

with the most

complex medical

conditions and

to support

planned and

co-ordinated

hospital

discharges

“

We support people

at home and in the

community

www.healthandcareathome.co.uk

This article was sponsored by Health & Care at Home. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from The Rt Hon Theresa May MP.

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By The Rt Hon Theresa May MP

This foreword from the then Prime Minister appeared in the 2018/19 Parliamentary Review.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review. For Her Majesty’s Government, our task in the year ahead is clear: to achieve the best Brexit deal for Britain and to carry on our work to build a more prosperous and united country – one that truly works for everyone.

The right Brexit deal will not be sufficient on its own to secure a more prosperous future for Britain. We also need to ensure that our economy is ready for what tomorrow will bring. Our Modern Industrial Strategy is our plan to do that. It means Government stepping up to secure the foundations of our productivity: providing an education system that delivers the skills our economy needs, improving school standards and transforming technical education; delivering infrastructure for growth; ensuring people have the homes they need in the places they want to live. It is all about taking action for the long-term that will pay dividends in the future.

But it also goes beyond that. Government, the private sector and academia working together as strategic partners achieve far more than we could separately. That is why we have set an ambitious goal of lifting UK public and private research and development investment to 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2027. It is why we are developing four Grand Challenges, the big drivers of social and economic change in the world today: harnessing artificial intelligence and the data revolution; leading in changes to the future of mobility; meeting the challenges of our ageing society; and driving ahead the revolution in clean growth. By focusing our efforts on making the most of these areas of enormous potential, we can develop new exports, grow new industries and create more good jobs in every part of our country.

Years of hard work and sacrifice from the British people have got our deficit down by over three quarters. We are building on this success by taking a balanced approach to public spending. We are continuing to deal with our debts, so that our economy can remain strong and we can protect people’s jobs, and at the same time we are investing in vital public services, like our NHS. We have set out plans to increase NHS funding annually by an average by 3.4 percent in real terms: that is £394 million a week more. In return, the NHS will produce a ten-year plan, led by doctors and nurses, to eliminate waste and improve patient care.

I believe that Britain can look to the future with confidence. We are leaving the EU and setting a new course for prosperity as a global trading nation. We have a Modern Industrial Strategy that is strengthening the foundations of our economy and helping us to seize the opportunities of the future. We are investing in the public services we all rely on and helping them to grow and improve. Building on our country’s great strengths – our world-class universities and researchers, our excellent services sector, our cutting edge manufacturers, our vibrant creative industries, our dedicated public servants – we can look towards a new decade that is ripe with possibility. The government I lead is doing all it can to make that brighter future a reality for everyone in our country.

British politics provides ample material for analysis in the pages of The Parliamentary Review

The Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Prime Minister