Integrated care and housing
Our ability to support our customers with their health and wellbeing and economic resilience enables people to remain independent in their homes for longer and to sustain their tenancy. Through our integrated Housing, Care and Support offer we provide a holistic coordination of services that ensure our customers can thrive.
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Sarah Dilley, who has praised colleagues at our Pavillions Extra Care scheme for the care they showed her mother
We’re passionate about ensuring we understand our customers’ needs so they continue to receive the best quality service.
In the last 12 months we’ve placed greater emphasis on reviewing and defining our care and support offer to ensure everything we do is sustainable to enable our customers to receive the best possible support and services, both now and in the future.
In the last year, two of our 12 services assessed by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) were found to require improvement and we’ve worked hard to address these findings and ensure we’re fully compliant, well resourced, and that the service we provide represents value for money.
We’ve continued to develop a longer term strategic focus on providing technological solutions that enable people to live with independence and dignity.
Our committed team of care and support colleagues is dedicated to providing a heartfelt service, and they receive regular professional training to ensure our customers receive the best possible support.
Integrating care and housing services
We’ve made further progress to offer an improved integrated aids and adaptations service, enabling our customers to receive key support at home, as well as continuing to provide an invisible-by-design approach within our new build homes.
To help us understand the impact of these integrated services and our community investment work we use two methodologies to measure the social value. The UK Social Value Bank focuses on individual wellbeing as a determinant for social impact (HACT) and social return on investment (SROI). We use these methods to place a value on the change that we’ve helped to create.
HACT proxies have calculated £6,7100,27 in social value and we’ve determined a further £1,323,524 using non-HACT proxies. This means that the total social value created is £8,033,511. This represents 50 percent increase to the £4million social value we delivered last year.
Our Community Investment initiatives generated a total of £7,973,732 of this social value and the cost to deliver these community investment initiatives was £1,026,505. Therefore, our Social Return on Investment (SROI) shows that for every £1 spent, £7.77 worth of social value was returned.
More detail about these figures will be included in our 2022/23 Social Impact Report.
We’re working hard to continue to develop an integrated aids and adaptations service to promote independent living at home.
Committed to providing quality care and support
With decades of experience providing dedicated care and support, we offer a host of practical services which enable our customers to enjoy independent and fulfilling lives while ensuring peace of mind and respite for their loved ones.
In the last 12 months we’ve placed greater emphasis on reviewing and defining our care and support offer to ensure everything we do is sustainable to enable our customers to receive the best possible support and services, both now and in the future.
Although we’ve taken the difficult decision to exit from some key care and support services, particularly in the West Midlands, we remain committed to ensuring that our residents receive an excellent service.
As we develop a longer term strategic focus on providing technological solutions that enable people to live in their own home for as long as possible, our Assistive Technology Team and Independent Living Advice Service will play a crucial role.
We’ll continue to explore using technology wherever possible to help people live in their own home for as long as possible.
Tenancy sustainment
Our Tenancy Sustainment Service has continued to demonstrate its value in the last 12 months with the economic climate clearly making life more challenging for many people. Our Tenancy Sustainment Officers (TSOs) work hard to identify where customers need help and coordinate an appropriate approach to achieve positive outcomes. The support is preventative, with the aim of avoiding or reducing the risk of tenancy-related issues and even homelessness.
Our TSOs work closely with the Employment and Skills Team and Money Advice Service to establish clear referral pathways, maximising resources, and minimising duplication. Since April 2021, there have been 411 referrals to this service with 98 percent of customers stating that their health and well-being has improved and 73 percent of customers telling us that they can now manage their finances better.
We also know that 98 percent of these interventions helped customers to sustain their tenancy, 33 people were prevented from becoming homeless and rent arrears reduced by £220,371.
Although starter tenancy rent arrears have risen in line with the economic pressures, and an increase in the homeless applicants we’ve accepted from local authority waiting lists, the percentage of tenancies sustained has remained relatively stable.
By carrying an increased level of debt for our starter tenancies, we’ve been able to balance our rent arrears performance. This has meant we’ve continued to provide homes for some of our most vulnerable customers, supporting them to repay arrears in a manageable way.
With furnishing a new home and household bills proving unaffordable, 46 percent of customers who applied to our hardship fund last year made an application within 60 days of their tenancy starting.
We also saw a 33 percent increase in the amount of money paid to customers through our Hardship Fund, as we invested £120,00 to support 509 people. There was also a 112 percent increase in referrals to our Money Advice Service, with 2,005 customers receiving this support. This resulted in 56 customers clearing their rent arrears and a further 164 households reducing their arrears.
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David Jordan is full of praise for our Money Advice Team after their support helped him sustain his tenancy following his mum’s death.
CASE STUDY
Helping Peter to make life that little bit easier
Nine years ago, Peter Hensman’s life changed forever. A diagnosis of the debilitating eye condition keratoconus meant the former bouncer, 48, had to give up work and could never drive again. Despite these challenges, Peter says the support of our Independent Living Service and some of the technology, grab rails and additional lighting the team has been able to install has made his life much easier.