Tag Archives: social care
Norfolk home care: Care UK Broadland ‘not good enough’
Care UK says it is “determined to resolve the problems” being experienced in Broadland.
Care UK took over visits to 300 clients in Broadland in July. One third of users have now reported a decline in services from the new provider.
Norfolk County Council said the service had “not been good enough”.
A Care UK spokesman apologised for “the problems” and said plans were in place “to resolve the issues”.
The council, which awarded the contract for the Broadland area to Care UK, said it had received complaints that carers were arriving early, up to three hours late, or not at all.
Social work practice with carers ‘lacks clarity and consistency’
Carers’ assessments uncommon and seldom used to inform service users’ support plans, finds government-funded research.
Social work practice with carers “lacks clarity and consistency”, resulting in carers’ needs not being assessed or informing service users’ support plans, research has found.
Though carers were involved in all stages of the personal budgets process for service users, separate assessments of their needs were uncommon and seldom conducted before service user support was planned, found the York University study on carers and personalisation. Researchers based their findings on a survey of 16 councils, in-depth research in three of these and interviews with carers and service users.
Carers’ role valued but assessed narrowly
Carers were commonly involved in supporting service users who had cognitive or communication impairments during assessment and this role was valued by service users and practitioners alike.
Managers and practitioners said carers were routinely asked about their willingness to continue providing support at this stage, aided by prompts on service users’ assessments forms, and some practitioners used these to ask carers about their own support needs.
