Home care pilot scheme launched in West Leeds

By Don Mortlocal democracy reporter

A pilot scheme will look to improve home care services for vulnerable people after being awarded a £5.7m contract.

Two care providers are set to deliver the service for 18 months in three council wards in west Leeds – Armley, Bramley and Stanningley and Farnley and Wortley.

Be Caring and Springfield Home Care were chosen following a tender process by Leeds City Council.

They will take over home care contracts from existing providers under the Community Health and Wellbeing Service (CHWS) pilot, starting in September.

A council report said: “The contract will test an innovative approach to home care which aims to achieve better value for money and improved services that will support people to live more independently at home for longer.”

The time needed to allocate new care packages would be reduced and care teams would provide more consistent and flexible services, the report said.

It said: “The technology will be introduced throughout the pilot to help reduce hospital admissions and help discharge faster.”

Travel time between home visits would also be reduced and recruitment would be open to non-drivers.

The salary would be increased with the introduction of an exchange allowance.

The report said: “At the moment a worker is given a set of visits to undertake which has a travel allowance built into their roster.

“If the care provider is not able to schedule a run of back-to-back calls, a care
the worker may have unpaid time off, yet not enough time to return home or do anything else.

“This means that care workers can, for example, work nine hours but only be paid for eight hours.”

Paying for all the time care staff are at work, including breaks, would increase the hourly rate from £23.91 to £26.22 an hour.

A £5.73m contract has been awarded to the two providers to deliver the pilot, commissioned in partnership with Leeds Community Healthcare NHS Trust.

The report said people would be supported to move to their new care provider with a dedicated phone line, email and contact sessions.

It said: “This includes an exceptional process to consider people for whom a move would not be suitable on a case-by-case basis.”

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