Reablement
North Tyneside's reablement service offers six weeks free support after hospital discharge. The service works with people to rebuild their confidence, support the development of daily living skills and promote community access and integration with the aim of preventing hospital readmission or the need for long-term care. Reablement services are available in your own home or in a residential setting.
Current LINk activity
Read the LINk report on home support reablement services
We asked for the views of people who had experience of reablement services in their own home. Overall the service was highly rated amongst service users and carers with the phrase ‘I loved it’ being often repeated. Read the response to our report by North Tyneside Council
Background
LINK's reablement project looked into service users and carers experiences of reablement services and aimed to:
- support people using reablement services to share their views on their service;
- offer recommendations on how the service may be improved from a user’s point of view; and
- highlight good practice and offer recommendations.
We started by finding out more about reablement services in North Tyneside and looked at the ten top tips for excellence in reablement services.
Excellence in reablement - top ten tips from the Excellence in Reablement Reference Group:
1. Information: reablement services should be well promoted with clear information about what the service can offer and who is eligible at the earliest times.
2. Culture: staff should be well trained in promoting independence and should have a reablement ethos, doing “with” rather than “for”.
3. Confidence: self-esteem and confidence are crucial to reablement. They should be the primary focus of each person’s plans to incorporate peoples wishes and desires.
4. Social Inclusion: coupled with this, services should promote community activity and social integration.
5. Avoid discrimination: reablement should be open to anyone who might benefit, irrespective of their condition or disability. It’s not just for older people.
6. Multi-disciplinary work: reablement should be well linked in to other services such as rehabilitation and mental health support. This will allow specialist input when needed.
7. Include Carers: often informal carers need support as well as the“user”. This team approach helping both together will double the impact of reablement.
8. Emotional support: don’t underestimate the importance of supporting people with their emotional and psychological needs.
9. Handovers: ensure a smooth transition to on-going services (for those who will need them). We don’t want all the hard work to be undone and continuity is important.
10.Group work: sometimes group work can help people to learn and regain skills – and to support each other.
Read the report to the Health and Wellbeing Board on reablement in North Tyneside, December 2010
For more information about this project contact Alison Chalmers on 0191 643 2624 or email alison.chalmers@voda.org.uk