We’ve recently opened some very successful services in Bournemouth. How does this come about? Director of Accommodation-based Services Riona Fitzmaurice explains …
How does a new Shaftesbury service come into being, Riona?
There are two routes really; there’s a procurement route where local authorities advertise upcoming new schemes or services for retendering. Work on that route is led by our commercial team. What happens more frequently for Shaftesbury is what I call the organic route, where we would be in discussions with commissioners we already work with.
For instance, we may be running a residential service where we think that perhaps the building needs to be redeveloped. We discuss this with the local authority to see if fits in with their strategic direction i.e. moving from residential to supported living, which is a very common kind of provision nowadays. This kind of discussion can be very long-term.
Residential services
What was the route for our new Bournemouth services?
The organic one. So in that region, we already had Shaftesbury Horizons, our residential nursing service for younger people, and residential services at Shaftesbury Marion House and Shaftesbury Talbot Manor. So we already had a strong presence and track record with Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole (BCP) council. And of course we have our education centres in that area too – Shaftesbury Victoria School and Shaftesbury Millie College.
What did you want to change in how we provided these services?
When I started nearly four years ago, we were having conversations with BCP around Marion House in particular. We started talking to BCP about what was needed in terms of modernisation and improved accessibility. Six older people with learning disabilities had lived at Marion House for a long time, and it was important for those people to stay together. We worked with developer Grosvenor Hill on the spec we wanted for this service – developers can be commercial companies, or housing associations. They agreed to buy the property from us, renovate, find a housing association to do the housing management side and we would provide the care and support.
Any bumps in the road?
There was no way the current residents could stay in Marion House with all the noise and dust of the renovation. This was a challenge because we didn’t have anywhere nearby to move people in the short-term and we certainly didn’t want to spread them around the country.
How did you solve it?
Happily the developer came across a residential service – Ivy Lodge – that had closed and come on the market. The developer asked if we’d be interested in working on this scheme with them. They offered us the use of Ivy Lodge for free so we could move the people from Marion House during the renovations, and then later they would renovate Ivy Lodge, so Shaftesbury would have a second supported living scheme. That answered all our prayers at that point. As it turned out, we had a rather long process of registering Ivy Lodge with CQC as a care home and it ended up being renovated before the Marion House people needed to move in. So they had a fully modernised temporary home whilst the work was done on their Marion House home.
Quality of care
What do commissioners require when a service building is renovated?
What’s really important to the council is people having their own front door, which implies very little shared accommodation. We reached a good compromise on this, so at Marion House we have two flats and six people sharing the rest of the house; Ivy Lodge has two flats and four people sharing the house. For Marion, we specified a ground floor on the level, bright and spacious, ensuite rooms and a lift.
Commissioners are always concerned with the accessibility of a service’s building, of course; also personalisation, such as people we support getting involved in choosing their décor. No surprise that costs are always important so we work on providing a core staff for supported living services, who will take care of the background ‘office’ stuff like answering the phone, checking mail. Residential care is quite expensive so we work on options for a supported living model and find the most cost-effective but high quality support package.
How’s it going now?
Both services came onstream about a year ago and both are fully occupied. People in the new Marion House absolutely love it! Because this is now a supported living service, the funding for each individual is different. So that means they have more personalised, one-to-one hours which gives more opportunities to go out in the community and that’s been very beneficial for these individuals.
Ivy Lodge is a younger people’s service and I think for all of them, it’s their first opportunity to live away from home. It’s given them the chance to set goals, develop their independence and form really lovely friendships. They’ve learned new skills and four out of six have paid or voluntary employment. Some are starting to use public transport on their own. At Marion House, the original tenants now have three new people join them, including a married couple, so new friendships have developed there too.
Why do commissioners choose Shaftesbury services?
I think our ability to be extremely flexible is attractive to local authorities. We can support a wide range of people and care needs, and we can do that in the same type of setting. Both Marion House and Ivy lodge have such a diverse client group, with very different needs and the staff are great at supporting them creatively.
As an organisation, we are also able to offer supported living packages for individuals rather than a shared living kind of setting – we have quite a few of that type of individual set-up in our northern services. We have a project team working on new services and we can draw on a wealth of knowledge and experience from wider Shaftesbury staff. The process for Marion House and Ivy Lodge worked really well from our end and we have other potential services in the pipeline.
Personalised support
What brings you job satisfaction?
For me, providing a new environment for people we support is crucial, giving people a modern, accessible building. And giving people access to that personalised support is key. It’s lovely to see people getting excited about what they can do.
At Marion House, they love to work together as a team and because they’ve lived together for so long, they choose to cook and eat together. For one person, who likes his own company and now has his own flat at Marion, he can use the shared support if he wants but he has his safe place that he can go back to and be supported there. Ivy lodge is giving six young people their first experience of being more independent in such a safe environment.
At Ivy Lodge, when Shaftesbury staff member Ceri went to assess Axl before moving in from home, he was so anxious he couldn’t come out of his room to meet her. And now he’s formed friendships and is going out, all in a few months. It’s made a huge difference to the people at both these houses.
