Enter and View visit to 120 Besley Street Supported Living Scheme

Report - 31 July 2016

We went to speak to tenants living in 120 Besley Street to find out their experiences of the supported living scheme. We’ve written our report of what people told us.

What we did

Visiting extra care and supported living housing schemes continues to be a strategic priority of 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.

In December 2015, we discussed visiting supported living schemes for adults with learning disabilities, with former commissioning manager at Wandsworth Council, who recommended a selection of schemes to visit.

Besley Street Supported Living Scheme is designed to encourage greater independence, with tenants normally expected to stay at the scheme for no longer than four years. This is encouraged in various ways, including one-to-one support and the promotion of life skills.

We aimed to use observations and interviews with tenants during our visit to Besley Street on 10^th May 2016, and subsequent telephone interviews with close relatives to report:

Tenant’s experience of the supported living scheme.
How far the service is meeting the needs of the tenants.
Close relatives’ perspectives on the supported living scheme.

Key Findings

The feedback from tenants and their relatives suggest that tenants may be unable to meet the outcomes of the supported living scheme, due to a variety of issues including:

Capacity issues.
Tensions between tenants, consequently affecting their own and other tenants’ progress in developing skills and greater independence.
Unrepaired facilities.
The tension between encouraging independence and the interests of good nutrition, e.g. lack of intervention when tenants regularly eat microwaveable processed foods.
With this, it appeared that there was little transparency regarding the provider’s policy of using the Besley Street scheme, with some tenants and relatives perceiving it to be a permanent home, which again, decreases the likelihood of greater independence being achieved.

However, both tenants and relatives were generally happy with the key worker system, as well as the support provided with arranging appointments with GPs and other health professionals.

Our Recommendations

As the findings demonstrate that the current provision at Besley Street may not lead to greater independence amongst tenants, we recommended the following:

Until the current problem is resolved, we think it could be unwise to admit further tenants to 120 Besley Street.
It is clearly important in the present situation that a particular effort is made to keep relatives as involved and as well informed as possible.
We would also suggest that the provider’s policy of using the scheme as a “stepping stone” to greater independence, assuming it is continued, should be very clearly explained to any new applicants and their relatives and kept to the fore in annual reviews.
The scheme should consider how more encouragement might be given to tenants to cook and eat more healthily, including the use of fresh produce, and in some cases to take a more active part in preparing their own meals.