Findings from our Enter and View visit to Gwyneth Morgan Day Centre
What we did
Age UK Wandsworth provide a specialist building based day service delivered from the Gwynneth Morgan Centre. This provision commenced on 1 October 2021 after a review of provision by Wandsworth Council. It supports people who need personal care assistance at a building-based service. At the time of our visit it was the only specialist service in Wandsworth for older people, people with a physical disability and adults with dementia who have assessed eligible needs under the Care Act 2014.
Support for people living with dementia and their carers is one of the priority topics currently identified by Healthwatch Wandsworth in the light of feedback from local people.
Our objectives:
Who we spoke to:
We spoke to nine clients on each of the two days of our visit, a total of 18 people.
Key findings:
From what we were told by clients and staff and what we observed it seems clear that the Gwynneth Morgan Day Centre is fulfilling its role amply of supporting people who have been referred to it by Wandsworth Social Services. The staff team and the client group seem close and the service regularly consults users to provide flexibility to meet the needs of the people who attend in activities and meals. The clients we spoke to were generally very happy with the Centre, its staff and its various activities and being with other people. Almost all of the clients we spoke to commented positively on their experience of attending the Centre.
We observed that the Centre itself is spacious, bright, airy, spotlessly clean and fresh and the atmosphere generally calm and unpressured.
The following points could be considered as the service develops further. Some of these recommendations may be considered outside the current scope of the service as commissioned and are for consideration by Wandsworth Council as commissioners.
- As the Centre and Commissioners are already aware, there are some safety and security issues (see section 4.0 of the report for more detail) that should be resolved if the Centre is to care for more people with dementia.
- Most people that we spoke to were happy with their meals and felt that they were adequately consulted about their food preferences. Nevertheless, some people that we spoke to commented that they would like more options when asked about their food (see section 3.9).
- The centre have made efforts to provide a hairdresser. When asked about if they would like to change anything, clients mentioned that they would like this.
- Clients told us that they had some suggestions for activities such as outings to Wandsworth Common or the shopping centre. The day service is not comissioned to provide community based activities but have told us about ways that they are integrating with the local community in other ways. The council could consider how clients could receive this kind of community-based support through links or referrals to other services who can support this.
- One person told us that they would like to have WiFi available at the Centre.
- One person with dementia told us that they found it difficult to distinguish staff from other clients and suggested that staff could wear something more clearly identifiable.
What happens next?
Our report was sent to Age Uk Wandsworth and Wandsworth Council for consideration.
Since we published our report there has been further developments in the transformation of day opportunity services in Wandsworth for older people, adults with dementia and people with a physical disability. This has included:
- support to increase the number of clients
- the number of accessible transport routes has increased from 3 to 4
- the Outreach services has been discontinued due to a lack of clients accessing this service and funding has been used to secure additional wheelchair accessible transport to the Gwenneth Morgan Centre
You can read more about the changes in the full report to the Health Committee from June 2023. This paper also describes other community-based services that aim to provide support for older Wandsworth residents.
