The Service ~ Home Care, Taunton, Somerset

Our service

Our service is designed to enable clients to enjoy the independence of their own homes by providing high quality personalised care and support delivered by well trained, caring, friendly staff.

We provide home care and support in Taunton and surrounding villages.

Our purpose built office is open Monday to Saturday; A supervisor and care assistant are available “on call” to cover seven days a week between 8.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m.

You are very welcome to come and visit us at our offices and training centre which are conveniently located about 5 miles outside Taunton along the A38 on the Wellington roundabout, close to junction 26 of the M5 motorway. Plenty of parking, flat level access and good tea and coffee.

The Service Provided

• We deliver care and support to people at home. Our carers help with those things, which you or those around you want support with.

• Personal care, including getting out of bed, dressing, washing and feeding etc

• Providing general domestic support, including housework, cooking, and essential day and to day activities.

• We also provide support to facilitate and accompany service users to maintain an active, independent lifestyle, including: collecting pensions, prescriptions, paying bills, arranging tradesmen and maintaining a safe environment.

• We deliver both day and night care from 1 to 24 hour intensive packages as well as companion care.

Our staff have experience in helping most people:

• Those suffering from a medical crisis, after an operation or illness.
• Someone who is disabled
• Those who have just had a baby.
• We deliver both day and night care from 1 to 24 hour intensive packages as well as companion care.
• The office is open Monday to Saturday; Tel: 01823 668400. A supervisor and care assistant are available “on call” to cover emergency situations seven days a week between 8.00 a.m. and 10.00 p.m.

Sitting Service

The sitting service is designed to give main carers a break. It is flexible and available in emergency situations. The visits can be between 2hrs and 8hrs long between 8am and 11pm.

Supporting People Services

Our Supporting People Services provides experienced support staff who work alongside people on specific tasks that will help enable them to live independently within the community.

A comprehensive, individually tailored package of housing related support is provided to enable a person to develop skills they need to maintain their independence and to manage and run their own home.

Additionally, support workers may assist people with a physical disability or sensory loss to participate in an activity of their choice from a range of mainstream educational, leisure and social opportunities offered in their local community.

Support is designed to assist service users with the running and maintenance of their home. There is a real emphasis on empowerment and support workers will be committed to 'doing with' rather than 'doing for' the service user.

Children & Families Services

We provide personal, domestic and social care and support for children and their families within their home.

Netherclay Home Care Ltd prides itself on delivering a reliable service, which is responsive to service user’s needs.

We are committed to:

• Affording every service user courtesy, respect and privacy.
• Providing individualised care and support based on the service user’s needs and preferences.
• Involving residents, family and friends in developing an individualised care plan.
• Ensuring the right of every client to independence and choice.
• Responding to the views of our clients, their family and friends to enable us to continually improve our service.
• Delivering high quality care to all Clients regardless of ethnic origin, religious or sexual orientation.
• Maintaining clients, family and friends well informed in order to allow them to make informed choices.
• Evaluating care on a regular basis in order to assess its effectiveness and ensure a service user’s needs and preferences are being met.
• Providing staff with up to date training, support and supervision.
• Investing to improve standards.

Supported service users - What to expect

Service users with arrangements made through Social Services.

A Social Worker will carry out a needs assessment and contact us and make the necessary arrangements.

In the first couple of days following the arrangements being made one of our senior care assistants will make an appointment to come and see you. They will carry out what is called a “Risk Assessment” and a manual handling assessment. These two assessments are intended to protect the health & safety of both service users and the carers.

Netherclay Home Care will, in liaison with you, the Social Worker and any relatives or friends you want to involve, develop an “Essential Lifestyle Plan” which should reflect your preferences and needs. The “Essential Lifestyle Plan” will be reassessed at regular intervals in order to ensure that the support delivered continues to meet your needs and preferences.

A day-to-day record as well as Essential Lifestyle Plan is kept in the service user’s house.

Our Senior Care Assistants will make an appointment to come and see you regularly to talk to you and any relatives or friends you would like to include, about the quality of care you receive and how happy you are with the service. We are committed to doing what you want us to do in the way you want it done.

Our office team will be in regular telephone contact. You can talk to them at anytime about the service you receive.

The Social Service department and the Care Quality Commission Inspectors may also carry out satisfaction surveys as part of their process and procedures, independently from Netherclay Home Care.

Private service users

For those paying for the cost of their care the process is very similar; the main difference being that once you have made contact with us we will make an appointment to carry out the necessary assessments.

We will provide you with our Terms of Agreement, price list and “ Service User’s Guide”

Financial Arrangements

Arrangements through Social Services and Direct Payments

The Social Worker will tell you the amount you have to contribute to your care.

You can either send a cheque in the post, pay by standing order or your carer will collect your contribution weekly or monthly. They will sign your care record to show how much they have collected. 

Direct Payments - Choice, Control and Independence

Social Services can give the service user the money to arrange care and support.

Talk to our staff about Direct Payments and how service users can take control of their care and support arrangements.

Private clients

We will invoice you monthly in areas. Your invoice will show the days you received our service, the amount you received and the cost.

Quality Control

Netherclay Home Care monitors and ensures quality in two main ways; an internal quality assurance system and procedures and external feedback, control and assessment.

Internal Quality monitoring

• Regular customer Satisfaction surveys
• The quality of the service is measured through audits carried out at regular intervals. This involves periodic measurement of what we do or what other people say we do against an ideal set of performance indicators.
• We keep a complaints log
• We maintain a day book
• We keep an accident book for both service users and staff.

External Quality Monitoring

• Feedback from clients, carers & others, including Social Workers,
• Quality assurance meetings with the Social Service Department. Social Services also carry out random customer satisfaction surveys.
• Reviews carried out by the Social Work team.
• Customer satisfaction surveys
• Inspections carried out by The Care Quality Commission.
• We were recognised as an Investors in People in 2002, 2005 and again in 2008 underlining our commitment to staff, training, support and supervision.

Care Quality Commission inspects Netherclay Home Care. The latest inspection report is available at Netherclay Home Care and on CQC’s web site.

See Useful Contacts section for contact details.

Complaints, Feedback or General Comments, both Positive and Negative.

Netherclay Home Care is committed to providing good quality services. We try very hard to make sure clients are treated well and receive a first class service. But we are all human and sometimes things may go wrong. If they do we would like to know.

For example:

• We have done something wrong.
• We haven't done something we should have done.
• We have not treated you in a caring, professional manner.

We are very keen to receive your feedback and comments. It is from your comments and feedback that we are able to continuously improves our service. We value both positive and negative comments.

Our promise:

• We will take all complaints seriously.
• We will investigate them thoroughly.
• We will inform the complainant about the outcome of our investigations.
• If we have made a mistake we will put it right.
• We will keep a record of your complaint.

How To Complain

If you are not satisfied with our service you should complain,  in the first instance,  to :

• The Home Care Manager

Once your complaint has been received it will be investigated and you should receive an answer within one week.

Useful Contacts:

Age Concern

Age Concern is always available to support and give advice. They provide an advocacy service and have considerable experience and knowledge of the rights and needs of the elderly. Netherclay Home Care would be happy to help arrange an Age Concern advocate for you.

Age Concern - Tel: 01823 423496

Care Direct (Social Services help and information line)

Care Direct have considerable experience and will be able to provide links to the right people.

Care Direct - Tel: 0845 3459133.

Care Quality Commission regulates and inspects care services.

Tel: 03000 616161