Enter and View visit to Prince of Wales Drive Extra Care Housing Scheme for Older People

Report - 28 February 2016

Healthwatch Wandsworth were invited to visit Prince of Wales Drive Extra Care Housing Scheme for Older People to understand tenants’ experiences of living in the scheme. Our report is based on what people told us what we saw during our visit.

What we did

Visiting Extra Care Schemes continues to be a strategic priority for the use of our Enter and View powers, as it is often the case that tenants of such schemes have fewer chances to express their views in comparison to people using other health or social care schemes.

The purpose of Extra Care Schemes is to combine the advantages of independent living with the provision of co-ordinated onsite care to cover a wide range of essential care needs.

Prince of Wales Drive Extra Care Housing Scheme provides care for people aged over 55, with a minimum care need of 10 hours a week.

All Extra Care tenants have eligible care needs which are met under a Wandsworth Council contract by Mears Group, who provided an on-site Care Manager.

The scheme has capacity for 66 tenants.

In March 2015, Care Quality Commission(CQC) inspected personal care services provided in several Boroughs and in a number of Extra Care Schemes, including Prince of Wales Drive.

The overall rating was that services required improvement.

We aimed to use interviews with tenants and observations of staff and tenant interaction during our visit at Prince of Wales Drive on 10^th November 2015, and subsequent conversations with tenant relatives to report on:

Tenants’ experience of living in the scheme.
The quality of individual care.

In total we spoke to twelve tenants, and four relatives.

Key Findings

The feedback from tenants was generally positive, particularly regarding personal care, whereby many tenants felt that staff respected their dignity, privacy and allowed them to be as independent as they could be, which was also demonstrable in the scheme’s approach to meal arrangements.

Additionally, a few tenants were impressed by the Care Manager’s efforts to do extra things to support the tenants, such as managing their money.

However, there was some negative feedback from both tenants and relatives, with some noting a lack of consistency in carers providing personal care. This is most likely the result of the confusion surrounding roles and expectations of staff.

There were also mixed reviews regarding engaging in activities. Whilst many tenants were satisfied with the variety of activities, other tenants felt that their interests were not being met, resulting in boredom and loneliness.

Our Recommendations

Overall, there is generally high tenant satisfaction with the personal help provided by carers. However, based on our interviews and observations, there appears to unmet health and social care needs, and we recommend the following:

The Care Manager should work towards achieving greater consistency of carers for tenants especially for personal care so that relationships can build up as recommended in best practice guidance.
The Care Manager should check, perhaps through the key working system, that all tenants have registered with a GP and are supported to attend where they may be constrained by disability.
The role, capacity and expectations of the Care Manager need to be clarified – covering the exact scope of any delegated authority to adjust care plans and easier and clearer access to social work support and when it should be called upon in the best interest of tenants.
The Care Manager should ask the housing provider to arrange regular visits to flats checking for health and safety hazards.