Latest news with #CommunityCare
Scoop
22-05-2025
- Health
- Scoop
Budget 2025: No Surprises And Little To Celebrate For General Practice
After a flurry of pre-Budget announcements for primary care, Budget 2025 delivered no surprises today for primary care. 'What is hard to ignore is that the savings the Government are celebrating today come at the expense of fair and equitable pay for women. The primary care nursing pay equity claim was among those suddenly terminated due to the rapid policy change this month, which has real consequences for retention of our nursing workforce, and for improving access to timely, high-quality primary and community care,' said General Practice NZ chief executive Maura Thompson. For the past three budgets GPNZ has been calling for a significant uplift to general practice funding to begin to address historic underfunding and support sustainability. Today Minister of Health, Simeon Brown stated that 'additional investment of 7.4 per cent in total funding represents an increase of 6.2 per cent per capita'. 'We're waiting for confirmation of the funding package available for general practice, knowing that the general practice cost pressure increase this year is 6.4 per cent. Based on the Minister's statement today, we expect the uplift available to be at least 6.2 per cent,' said Ms Thompson. 'There must be no repeat of last year's situation, which shifted costs on to patients through increased fees.' Additional funding for Comprehensive Primary and Community Care Teams (CPCT) was notably absent from today's Budget announcements, despite strong indications that there would be continued support from Government for these essential roles. 'We've been pleased by the earlier announcements of additional investment in the primary care workforce, with funding for an increase in GP and nurse practitioner training places and support for new graduate nurses. However, we need to retain and expand other roles in general practice, such as pharmacists, physios and paramedics. These roles are proven to contribute to fewer ED attendances, fewer hospital admissions, shorter appointment wait times, and more tailored wraparound care.' There is some welcome news from the Budget with new allocations to support transition from hospital to aged care and the 111 mental health response service. However, it is also evident that funding for new cancer drugs has been slow to reach the sector, with underspend returned as savings this year. 'We've been keen to progress discussions about how this funding can be used to increase access to cancer drugs in primary and community settings,' Ms Thompson said. 'It's disappointing to see these funds returned, given the urgent needs of patients nationwide. We'll continue to push for progress.'
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘People don't want to wipe bottoms': Why Britain has a social care crisis
At a time when the latest figures show a 4.5 per cent UK unemployment rate in the three months to March, with 1.61 million out of work (the highest levels in nearly four years), it may seem rather curious that care homes are struggling to fill their vacancies locally. It's even more curious when you consider that, between 2021 and 2024, the proportion of social-care workers recruited from outside the EU rose from nine per cent to 19 per cent, according to a recent report in the publication Community Care. It brings an awkward truth into sharp relief: care homes are desperately trying to recruit from far and wide to fill their vacancies, because not even Britain's ballooning numbers of unemployed want to fill them. More unfortunately still, the issue has been compounded by Keir Starmer's announcement last week of plans to end the recruitment of care workers from overseas as part of Labour's controversial immigration reforms. Care providers say it's a further hammer blow and warn that, if the Government doesn't fix the problems that make it so difficult for them to recruit UK staff first, then some services will struggle to survive. Even with the lifeline of overseas workers, there were around 131,000 vacancies in social care in England last year. But why are Britons so reluctant to work in care? Some care bosses say they do not receive a single application from their local workforces when they advertise vacancies. 'We want good quality staff, dedicated staff, it's not a job you can just do for the money,' says Victoria Pringle, the registered manager of Welcombe Care, a small, independent GP-led service which, since 2015, has provided carers to support people in their own homes in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and surrounding villages. 'But we cannot recruit from Britain, we just don't get any applications – it's horrendous.' Yet Birmingham, which is also part of her beat, has the highest unemployment level in the country. 'We are constantly running adverts here and in Birmingham and Coventry for jobs and the only people who apply are from overseas, mainly Africa and India,' Pringle says. 'It's impossible to recruit UK nationals, even though we pay a couple of pounds an hour over minimum wage. People just don't want to do it, or they only want to work limited hours. But being a carer means working unsociable hours, all year round.' The average hourly rate for care workers is the same as minimum wage – £12.08 outside of London. 'I've had a lot of people tell me they are better off on benefits than doing this,' says Pringle. 'Unfortunately, we've had people come to us and then decide they're better off on benefits and leave, or they only want to work certain hours because it affects their benefits, and they leave. My impression is that people in this country just don't want to do it.' She stresses that it's a responsible job, 'where you are, for example, administering medication. People just see it as washing bottoms and think, I don't want to do that. They just don't want to get out of bed. It's hard work. They don't see how it can be an honour and a joy to be helping someone.' Pringle, 53, says her company employs about 40 carers. A quarter of them are from overseas, in their mid-20s and early-30s. The rest are aged 50-plus, and the oldest 74. 'It's hopeless trying to get anyone under-40 from Britain. When people like me, who were born in the 1970s, retire, the system will be knackered – there's nobody young coming through from this country,' she says. Her sentiments have been echoed by Amy Clark, commercial director of Jammac Care Group, a group of five care homes in Cornwall that are very reliant on overseas workers. 'We try all the time to recruit locally and we just don't get any applicants,' she recently told Radio 4's Today programme. 'We put our wages up, we still don't get any applicants.' She says the crisis faced by care providers has been worsened by the recent rise in National Insurance contributions for employers and the 'pitiful uplift' from the local authorities in relation to the social care funding. Clark wants reforms to the benefits system to make not working a less attractive prospect, and believes, since lockdown, 'people have become accustomed to not working.' She also says that high childcare costs are putting off workers, as the majority of people who work in care are women ('they are generally the people called on to cover child care'), and stresses that the overseas workforce is not 'cheap, imported labour' as they pay them the same as UK staff and their training costs the same. 'We actually pay more for the foreign staff because we have to pay for the sponsorship, roughly £2,000 per foreign member of staff,' Clark tells The Telegraph. So how do unemployed people really feel about working in care? In the workless hotspot of Birmingham, their responses are depressing. 'I'm not interested in it,' says one female jobseeker enjoying the sun in the city's Victoria Square. 'I'm more interested in beauty.' And a 29-year-old man who has been looking for work since January (his last job having been 'in a call centre for a couple of months') says, as he leaves a city centre job centre: 'I don't think it's for me – washing people and all that, I don't think I could do it. I could maybe help them walk, but I'm not really a touchy person.' Melanie Reid, 48, who is about to start a new job in admin, says: 'I've done it before, it's badly paid. I worked for about six months in a residential care home some years ago. If they paid higher wages, I think they'd attract more people. It can be rewarding, it's helping people, but I wouldn't go back into it.' Some hope, at least, is offered by Hannah Lowe and Harshpreet Kaur, both 20-year-old psychology students at Aston University. 'We'd consider it, we like helping people,' says Lowe. 'We wouldn't worry about any parts of the job some might think of as unpleasant.' The preponderous of negative views does not surprise Nadra Ahmed, co-chairman of the National Care Association. 'The image of social care is very poor,' she says, 'and many people now prefer to do delivery jobs. Care work can be stressful, hard work but it is very fulfilling for the right people and those prepared to be trained to deliver a high standard of care.' Those coming from overseas may have a different attitude to caring because of cultural reasons, such as living in intergenerational homes. Between 2022 and 2024, visas for foreign care work were mostly issued to individuals coming from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana. 'They may be used to seeing their grandparents in the house, or it may not be uncommon to have three generations in the house,' says Ahmed. 'If the Government closes the overseas route down, they need to establish a career pathway, to recognise carers as a skilled workforce. If nothing changes and they think there's going to be a miracle of UK recruitment, they are deluded. 'You can't teach somebody to be compassionate, to care,' she continues. 'You can't just say there are X many unemployed, why can't they fill the care vacancies? Those compassionate people may be out there but they're not coming forward because it doesn't pay what they need. They have to make the sector more attractive, and fund pay initiatives which will be critical for us to attract people who see a sustainable career pathway for themselves. 'The Government seems to be making it up as they go along, they don't seem to have a plan. Yes, ok, we should be hiring more UK workers. But why not set a target for domestic recruiting then phase out the overseas workers?' In Acocks Green, a suburb south-east of Birmingham city centre, Sue Howard, a former detective in West Midlands Police, has owned the 24-resident capacity Victoria Lodge care home for over 30 years. It has earned a string of 'outstanding' ratings from the Care Quality Commission. Thanks to building up a dedicated and loyal staff of 35, including 24 carers, she is in the fortunate position of not having to rely on overseas recruits. And if someone is off sick, the home's registered manager, Ann Coombes, frequently steps in, meaning they do not have to use agency staff, who are often recruited from overseas. Howard, 66, is, however, acutely aware of the need to attract younger people into care work, and Coombes, 63, has given talks at a local school to that end. Coombes says: 'I've had people say to me that they don't want to have to go in there and wipe [bottoms]... I say you know what, you could make it a career. Look at me, I started off making tea at a care home many years ago and now I'm a registered manager, I'm on a good wage, you can make it a career.' 'Youngsters might not fancy the idea of working in care,' Howard adds, 'but we'd say to them – come and do the tea trolley, come and do some activities with the residents, hand out the tea and cake in the afternoon. See what it's like and how rewarding it can be knowing you've helped someone. 'After all, this could be your grandad, this could be your grandma.' Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Telegraph
19-05-2025
- Business
- Telegraph
‘People don't want to wipe bottoms': Why Britain has a social care crisis
At a time when the latest figures show a 4.5 per cent UK unemployment rate in the three months to March, with 1.61 million out of work (the highest levels in nearly four years), it may seem rather curious that care homes are struggling to fill their vacancies locally. It's even more curious when you consider that between 2021 and 2024, the share of the workforce in social care that consisted of foreign workers from outside the EU rose from 9 per cent to 19 per cent, according to a recent report in the publication Community Care. It brings an awkward truth into sharp relief: care homes are desperately trying to recruit from far and wide to fill their vacancies, because not even Britain's ballooning numbers of unemployed want to fill them. More unfortunately still, the issue has been compounded by Keir Starmer's announcement last week of plans to end the recruitment of care workers from overseas as part of Labour's controversial immigration reforms. Care providers say it's a further hammer blow if the government doesn't fix the problems that make it so difficult for them to recruit UK staff first. For now, care companies fear some services will struggle to survive without the 'lifeline' of overseas recruitment: in the meantime, there were around 131,000 vacancies in social care in England last year, entirely failing to attract Britain's many more unemployed. But why are Britons so reluctant to work in care? The problem is so bad that some care bosses say they do not receive a single application from their local workforces when they advertise vacancies. 'We want good quality staff, dedicated staff, it's not a job you can just do for the money,' says Victoria Pringle, the registered manager of Welcombe Care, a small, independent GP-led service which since 2015 has provided carers to support people in their own homes in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, and surrounding villages. 'But we cannot recruit from Britain, we just don't get any applications – it's horrendous.' Yet Birmingham, which also comes under her beat, has the highest unemployment level in the country. 'We are constantly running adverts here and in Birmingham and Coventry for jobs and the only people who apply are from overseas, mainly Africa and India,' Pringle says. 'It's impossible to recruit UK nationals, even though we pay a couple of pounds an hour over minimum wage. People just don't want to do it, or they only want to work limited hours. But being a carer means working unsociable hours, all year round.' The average hourly rate for care workers is the same as minimum wage – £12.08 outside of London. 'I've had a lot of people tell me they are better off on benefits than doing this,' says Pringle. 'Unfortunately, we've had people come to us and then decide they're better off on benefits and leave, or they only want to work certain hours because it effects their benefits, and they leave. My impression is that people in this country just don't want to do it.' She stresses that it's a responsible job, 'where you are, for example, administering medication. People just see it as washing bottoms and think, I don't want to do that. They just don't want to get out of bed. It's hard work. They don't see how it can be an honour and a joy to be helping someone.' Pringle, 53, says her company employs about 40 carers. A quarter of them are from overseas, in their mid-20s and early-30s. The rest are aged 50-plus, and the oldest 74. 'It's hopeless trying to get anyone under-40 from Britain. When people like me, who were born in the 1970s, retire, the system will be knackered – there's nobody young coming through from this country,' she says. Her sentiments have been echoed by Amy Clark, commercial director of Jammac Care Group, a group of five care homes in Cornwall that she says are very reliant on overseas workers. 'We try all the time to recruit locally and we just don't get any applicants,' she recently told Radio 4's Today programme. 'We put our wages up, we still don't get any applicants.' She says the potential crisis faced by care providers has been worsened by the recent rise in National Insurance contributions for employers and the 'pitiful uplift' from the local authorities in relation to the social care funding. Clark said to tackle the UK recruitment problem, the benefits system needs to be looked at to make not working a less attractive prospect. She also believes that 'we're still fighting the effect of lockdown – I think people have become accustomed to not working.' She says that high childcare costs are putting off workers, as the majority of people who work in care are women ('they are generally the people called on to cover child care'), and stresses that the overseas workforce is not 'cheap, imported labour' as they pay them the same as UK staff and their training costs the same. 'We actually pay more for the foreign staff because we have to pay for the sponsorship, roughly £2,000 per foreign member of staff,' Clark told The Telegraph. So how do unemployed people really feel about working in care? In the workless hotspot of Birmingham, their responses are depressing. 'I'm not interested in it,' says one female jobseeker enjoying the sun in the city's Victoria Square. 'I'm more interested in beauty.' And a 29-year-old man who has been looking for work since January (his last job having been 'in a call centre for a couple of months') says, as he leaves a city centre job centre: 'I don't think it's for me – washing people and all that, I don't think I could do it. I could maybe help them walk, but I'm not really a touchy person.' Melanie Reid, 48, who is about to start a new job in admin says: 'I've done it before, it's badly paid. I worked for about six months in a residential care home some years ago. If they paid higher wages, I think they'd attract more people. It can be rewarding, it's helping people, but I wouldn't go back into it.' Some hope, at least, is offered by Hannah Lowe and Harshpreet Kaur, both 20-year-old psychology students at Aston University. 'We'd consider it, we like helping people,' says Lowe. 'We wouldn't worry about any parts of the job some might think of as unpleasant.' The preponderous of negative views does not surprise Nadra Ahmed, co-chairman of the National Care Association. 'The image of social care is very poor,' she says, 'and many people now prefer to do delivery jobs. Care work can be stressful, hard work but it is very fulfilling for the right people and those prepared to be trained to deliver a high standard of care.' Those coming from overseas may have a different attitude to caring because of cultural reasons, such as living in intergenerational homes. Between 2022 to 2024, visas for foreign care work were mostly issued to individuals coming from India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Ghana. 'They may be used to seeing their grandparents in the house, or it may not be uncommon to have three generations in the house,' says Ahmed. 'If the government closes the overseas route down, they need to establish a career pathway, to recognise carers as a skilled workforce. If nothing changes and they think there's going to be a miracle of UK recruitment, they are deluded. 'You can't teach somebody to be compassionate, to care,' she continues. 'You can't just say there are X many unemployed, why can't they fill the care vacancies? Those compassionate people may be out there but they're not coming forward because it doesn't pay what they need. They have to make the sector more attractive, and fund pay initiatives which will be critical for us to attract people who see a sustainable career pathway for themselves. 'The government seems to be making it up as they go along, they don't seem to have a plan. Yes, ok, we should be hiring more UK workers. But why not set a target for domestic recruiting then phase out the overseas workers?' In Acocks Green, a suburb south-east of Birmingham city centre, Sue Howard, a former detective in West Midlands Police, has owned the 24-resident capacity Victoria Lodge care home for over 30 years. It has earned a string of 'outstanding' ratings from the Care Quality Commission. Thanks to building up a dedicated and loyal staff of 35, including 24 carers, she is in the fortunate position of not having to rely on overseas recruits. And if someone is off sick, the home's registered manager Ann Coombes frequently steps in, meaning they do not have to use agency staff, who are often recruited from overseas. Howard, 66, is, however, acutely aware of the need to attract younger people into care work, and Coombes, 63, has given talks at a local school to that end. Coombes says: 'I've had people say to me that they don't want to have to go in there and wipe [bottoms]... I say you know what, you could make it a career. Look at me, I started off making tea at a care home many years ago and now I'm a registered manager, I'm on a good wage, you can make it a career.' 'Youngsters might not fancy the idea of working in care,' Howard adds, 'but we'd say to them – come and do the tea trolley, come and do some activities with the residents, hand out the tea and cake in the afternoon. See what it's like and how rewarding it can be knowing you've helped someone. 'After all, this could be your grandad, this could be your grandma.'
Telegraph
16-05-2025
- Telegraph
The campaigners demanding life sentences for reckless cyclists
For mother-of-three Savina Hewson, 56 at the time, the day she got knocked over by an Uber Eats courier riding an e-bike on the pavement was a day she feels lucky to have survived. Shuddering as she recalls the incident, she explains how a cyclist ploughed into her as she stood at a crossing, leaving her with severe concussion and bruising to her face. After spending a night in hospital, she then suffered extreme migraines and fatigue which left her unable to work for four weeks, plus terrible lower back pain which required months of physiotherapy. 'People understand that being hit by a pushbike, let alone an e-bike, can do serious harm, and it did,' she tells The Telegraph. 'I was hit by a large man going very fast on an e-bike. It was like being struck by a motorbike driven full speed along the pavement. 'It had thick, chunky wheels and a large frame… The psychological impact on me – months on – is still awful. I often think about it.' Hewson's story is not for the faint-hearted. Indeed, in the incident last November in Hull, East Yorkshire, her perpetrator not only knocked her down, but allegedly punched her as she lay on the ground after she had tried to reach for her phone. He then rode off, leaving passers-by to come to her aid and call an ambulance. Despite this, her attacker – who has since been traced by Humberside Police – has not faced any criminal proceedings, a decision which has left Hewson, a community care worker, 'enraged' and 'disgusted'. 'He lost his job at Uber Eats and police said he had suffered enough,' she adds. 'But I am dumbfounded by the lack of action. It was a completely dangerous and reckless crime. I was seriously injured and he has faced no consequences. Justice has not been served and I never even got an apology. He should be serving a long sentence, or he will just do it again.' A spokesman for Humberside Police said: 'Thankfully the cyclist [in this incident] did not sustain any serious injuries as a result of the collision. Officers spoke to the victim and the man, and a resolution was reached after the driver was given words of advice.' But the lack of recourse has left Hewson welcoming news that the Government is planning to toughen up laws relating to cycling collisions – including those caused by e-bikes. New government proposals to the Crime and Policing Bill – which is currently going through Parliament – could see dangerous cyclists who kill face life imprisonment. Currently, those who commit such a crime can be imprisoned for only a maximum of two years under an archaic 1861 law intended for horse riders. The changes would also see serious injury caused by dangerous cycling – or death by careless or inconsiderate cycling – incur a five-year jail term, fines, or both. (Electric scooters are already classed as motorised vehicles.) According to the Department for Transport (DfT), the amendment would see cycling offences brought into line with driving offences. A DfT spokesman said updating the more than 160-year-old legislation would 'ensure that the tiny minority who recklessly disregard others face the full force of the law'. If the changes do come through, however, they will only be after years of campaigning. Under the previous government, Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith campaigned to amend the Criminal Justice Bill to hold cyclists accountable for reckless behaviour. Another key campaigner has been Matthew Briggs, a company director, whose wife, Kim, died from head injuries after being hit by a cyclist in February 2016. In that harrowing instance, Mrs Briggs, 44, was crossing a road, having popped out for lunch in Old Street, east London, when a cyclist riding an unroadworthy bike ploughed into her. She fell to the ground, suffered catastrophic head injuries, and died a week later in the Royal London Hospital, leaving behind a husband plus a son and daughter, then aged 12 and 10. 'Nothing can prepare you for a sudden road death,' Briggs tells The Telegraph from his home in south-east London. 'I lost my wife and best friend. But my sole focus has been on shepherding [my children] to a point where they are optimistic and positive about life. They are now 21 and 19 and are doing fantastically, which is my proudest achievement. 'I met Kim at university and had 27 years with her, but my kids had less time with her, so I've always been aware it's not about me, it's about them.' Briggs's grief was compounded by the complexity of forming a criminal case against the perpetrator, Charlie Alliston, then 18. Alliston had been riding a fixed-gear bike with no front brake, which is illegal for road use. But with no modern laws which cover such an offence, it took 18 months to secure a conviction against him for 'wanton or furious driving' under the 1861 law. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison. It was this 'torturous legal process' that led Briggs in 2017 to begin campaigning for changes to the law – something he is now cautiously optimistic may be achieved. 'Tariffs have never been important to me, although I know they are to other families who have lost loved ones,' he adds. 'I have always just wanted to close the gap in the law, so cycling offences are treated on a par with motoring offences. In my view, it doesn't matter if a person is killed by a car or a bike, the impact on the family and the victim is the same. Yes, deaths from cyclists are rare, but we still need a law to deal with this eventuality.' Deaths are rare: between 2013 and 2024, roughly 30 pedestrians were killed by cyclists in England and Wales, roughly three a year. But when they happen, often the victims are elderly. They include 91-year-old Army veteran Jim Blackwood, who died of internal injuries in July 2023 after being hit by an e-bike in Rochester, Kent, while putting out his recycling, plus Hilda Griffiths, 81, who was struck as she walked her dog in Regent's Park by a cyclist doing peloton laps. Serious injuries from cyclist collisions are also growing. Official figures show that there were 308 pedestrians injured by cyclists in 2020, compared with 437 in 2021 and 462 in 2022. Experts fear the numbers may be increasing as the popularity of battery-powered e-bikes means more people are travelling at speed on heavier machines. Cycling in general is also on the rise, with the City of London seeing a more than 50 per cent increase in the past two years. According to Eman Hassan, a senior associate at London law firm Fieldfisher, which represented Briggs in his civil and criminal cases against Alliston, incidents of pedestrians being hit by cyclists seeking advice from her firm are on the rise. 'We are seeing more and more people hit by bikes, especially, I feel, since the London cycle superhighways were introduced,' she says. 'Often, it's from a normal pedal bike, where the person has been hit directly or knocked over into the road. 'We see clients suffering injuries ranging from severe brain injury to upper and lower limb fractures. These injuries can be life-changing.' Hassan welcomes the changes, but feels that if cyclists are to be treated on a par with motorised vehicles in the law, they should also be expected to get insurance. 'If cyclists had insurance and collided with someone, causing serious injury, the victim may well need specialist rehabilitation to support their recovery. But currently, there is nothing that can be done unless the cyclist has some form of home insurance or the accident occurs during the course of their employment and a claim could be made against their company. 'It is never right that the careless actions of one person should hugely disadvantage another, often to the extent of ruining their and their family's lives for ever.' Changes to the law are also welcomed by writer Annette Kellow, whose disabled son, Felix, six, was 'bulldozed' by a cyclist riding an e-bike along London's Kensington High Street pavement in October 2024. 'It was rush hour so the cyclists were using the pavement to beat the cars,' Kellow tells The Telegraph. 'My son was about a metre from me, and I saw a cyclist just plough into him. Felix smacked his head on the pavement and was bleeding on his arm. I was in complete shock but the cyclist said, 'I couldn't stop,' then pedalled off.' As Felix suffers from a rare bleeding disorder, where a single 'bump' can cause life-threatening bleeds, Kellow immediately took him in a taxi to Chelsea and Westminster A&E. 'Felix was completely dazed and wasn't responding to any communication, which absolutely terrified me as it could be a sign of bleeding on the brain,' she adds. 'Doctors gave him an injection to stop the bleeding on his arm, and gave him an MRI. Luckily, he didn't have a bleed on his brain, but the experience was horrific – essentially a lawless hit and run on my child.' 'Changes are necessary,' she says. 'But I think the law also needs to tackle cyclists mounting pavements, jumping red lights and riding above the speed limit. 'Cycling in general is a good idea, but so many cyclists – especially on the Lime bikes and e-bikes – are reckless. My son was lucky but they really are a danger to life.'
BBC News
24-04-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Halifax care service upgraded to 'good' after inspection
A care agency providing residential support for people with complex needs which was branded "inadequate" has improved to a "good" rating after a new Community Care in Halifax, which supports 26 people with mental health issues, autism and learning disabilities, was also removed from special measures, said watchdog Care Quality Commission (CQC). One of the main improvements was helping residents to "maximise their independence" which included going on holiday abroad, finding a job, taking control of their finances and even getting a tattoo. A CQC spokesperson said: "People using the service were excited to tell us about the support they received from staff and how they'd been empowered to make decisions about their lives." 'Felt safe' The inspection took place in November and December 2024 and involved 11 different supported-living houses in Halifax. Previously the service was said to be poorly managed and the care was not "person-centred" but after a new manager was installed the rating for being "safe and responsive" was upgraded to "good". Linda Hirst, CQC deputy director of operations in the north, said: "When we inspected the service, we were very pleased to see significant improvements to people's safety and quality of life."People told us they felt safe and listened to, and one person compared their home and support to a family." She also said one resident had built the confidence to go out into the community for the first time in several years and another was able to go on holiday abroad for the first time since they were aged two. Inspectors also found staff and leaders knew how to protect people from risks of abuse or avoidable harm and residents reported they were able to do the activities they wanted, such as theatre trips, discos and barge were also successfully matched to staff with similar interests to support relationship-building, they said.A Lifeways Community Care spokesperson said: "This is a fantastic achievement by a dedicated team who've worked tirelessly to deliver on an intensive improvement plan."Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
