Care Home Conversations

Background

During May and June 2020, teams from PenARC, NHSE South West Integrated Personal Commissioning team, the South West Academic Health Science Network and a care home manager held three ‘conversations’ between staff, managers, owners and others from a range of homes in the South West. Each conversation focused on ‘what matters to people supporting or living and working in care homes’, listening to participants’ experiences and thoughts first-hand.

Care homes and other shared residential settings are undoubtedly feeling the impact of COVID-19 and people who live and work in these settings have needed to adapt in extremely difficult circumstances. Just some of the many challenges care homes are facing include restrictions to visiting, grief and changes to everyday routines. We also know that residents and workers have responded with courage.

Aims

PenARC is partnering with the South West Integrated Personalised Care team (SWIPC) and the South West Academic Health Science Network (SW AHSN) to:

Understand people’s experiences of how COVID-19 is affecting care homes as places to live and work
Highlight what is currently working well or not
Identify and develop a picture of ‘what could be’ in the future

Activity

A series of conversations were convened in May and June 2020, hosted via Zoom. They brought together people living and working in care homes and other shared residential settings as well as care home managers, owners, GPs, commissioners and others visiting care homes.

The questions posed in the conversations were:

1. What matters to you about living or working in a residential or care home?

2. What are the things we would / would not want to change?

3. What is going to make the most difference?

You can add your comments and join the conversation here on our Facebook page.