Council helps vulnerable to stay at home

The programmes form part of the sector’s continuous commitment to place less people in care and hospital settings and more in the community.

Additional new funding for adult social care from central government is helping Shropshire Council’s social care services to develop new initiatives and projects. These are aimed to support people and those who may be caring for them, to remain healthy by helping connect them to local support, activities and resources in their local community.

The projects are also designed to prevent the need for bed-based care either in hospital, in a community hospital or nursing home setting. So whether that’s helping to avoid people entering hospital or assisting them to return home as quickly as possible.

New initiatives being trialled include bespoke night time support, carer support post hospital discharge, new carers development and the Let’s Talk local hub.

There is also the HOLD project. Shropshire Council was awarded over £2.4m to help people with disabilities live independently in their own homes, through the Government’s ‘Home Ownership for Clients with Long Term Disabilities’ (HOLD) programme.

Care units are in place for where additional support is needed but can’t be provided within the person’s home. The council has commissioned four new ‘independence’ units located within a local housing development. These units will be individually self-contained, where couples or single people can live and where they can continue to receive therapeutic and care support prior to, and during their transition when moving back to their own home.

Lee Chapman, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member for health, adult social care and housing, said: “Although we acknowledge there is a national issue around the shortage of care home beds, creating more capacity for beds is not necessarily the best solution. We’ve been aware of this in Shropshire for some time as we have the additional challenges of being a rural county with a growing older population which is higher than the England average.

“We know that most people in need of support would prefer to be at home, and our priority is to ensure people can remain independent and safe and continue to live in their home for as long as possible. Therefore we are looking at ways to enable this by working more closely with our health and voluntary sector partners and within the local community and by utilising local resources that help people remain safe, well and independent for longer.

“The extra boost of Government funding will help address some of the challenges we face through these new initiatives and support the existing work we do with our partners around keeping people in their homes.”