Short-term home care
Our short-term home care service operates in Essex, London & West Sussex and is here to provide you with the support you need to regain confidence and independence in your own home following a spell of ill health, surgery or an accident.
About the service
Commissioned by local authorities and Health partners our short-term care services focus on supporting recovery, stabilisation and confidence building, ensuring that your needs are met and agreed outcomes are achieved.
To be eligible for the service you will have been assessed by a social care or health professional as needing a period of intensive support and located in Essex, London, or West Sussex.
The support received will be different for every person. You may need to find a new way of getting in and out of bed or help preparing meals. Or you may need support with blood sugar monitoring or administering medication.
Take a look at our 'Outstanding' and 'Good' CQC ratings.
Finding out what support you need
Our first job is to find out exactly what kind of support will help you the most.
A social care practitioner, with support from an ECL Trusted Assessor will determine whether our short-term care service is suitable for you. Once a referral has been made from the social care practitioner your service will normally start within 24 hours.
If you are in hospital, our Trusted Assessor will visit you there and help you to make arrangements for your return home.
Care and support in your own home
One of our Trusted Assessors will visit you at home and undertake with you a customer support assessment. This means we will discuss what you would like to achieve from the service (goals) and how we can support you to do achieve them. We use your goals to make sure you have the right support in place and make as much progress as you possibly can.
As well as our Trusted Assessor you will see our Community or Health Care Assistants and perhaps also our Occupational Therapists and Physiotherapists. All of whom will work with you in your own home and local community to progress your recovery.
Whilst you are receiving our care we will work with you to identify support networks within your family, friends and local community.
Moving on
As this service is only in place for a maximum of six weeks, longer term arrangements will be discussed with you at the earliest opportunity so that you and your family or carers can plan for the future.
Who can make referrals?
Referrals are made by social care professionals in hospital or community settings.
Hospital referrals (community or acute) can be made via the ward (where a ward led approach exists) or by the Social Care Hospital Assessment Team or equivalent for your locality.
Community referrals can be made by GPs, Community Health Providers, Community Nurses, Community Social Work teams, Single Point of Referral (SPOR) or Single Point of Access (SPOA), whichever operates in your locality.
Paula Wilcock, who works as a Community Care Assistant for ECL in West Sussex, was attending a customer’s home when a house fire broke out.
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The West Sussex North ECL team recently held their team building session and decided that they wished to give something back to the wider community.
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Emma is a new member of staff who, upon induction, was trained in Basic Life Support.
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Guidance and advice
ECL’s Reablement Service prevents couple from living apart
After a hospital stay, Norman’s wife Lily – who has vascular dementia - found she was no longer able to care for herself in the way she could before. Norman was advised to consider residential care for Lily, but after nearly 70 years of marriage the thought of living apart was heart-breaking for them both. Thankfully, ECL’s Reablement Service was able to step in to ensure they could stay in the home they love, together.