Warwickshire firm pledges help for scores of elderly and frail "suffering unnecessarily" due to NHS home assessment delays

The UK’s health and social care system is continuing to creak under exceptional demand, with recent data on bed blocking reported by the BBC showing billions are being wasted on beds for patients who don’t need to be in hospital.

A big part of tackling that issue is the provision of NHS home assessments and properly-qualified advice, to look at people’s homes on discharge from hospital to ensure they can live safely and independently.

However, those assessments are themselves vastly oversubscribed, with the result that frail, elderly and disabled people are routinely waiting weeks and months to find out what they need to know to make their home safe.

Wenman Healthcare, based in Barford, near Warwick, is one of only a handful of UK care providers whose staff have undergone Trusted Assessing and Care Training (TACT) – meaning they can provide the same home assessments as the NHS, also for free, without the delays experienced via the health service.

The family-run firm, which was established more than 40 years ago and is now helping a third generation of families, provides a wide range of mobility products and independent living solutions and is a regional training hub for trusted adviser/assessor training.

Director Ian Wenman said appropriately qualified private sector mobility and healthcare businesses are perfectly placed to help ease the strain on the UK’s social care system.

He pointed to a TACT study in Wales which estimated 60,000 older and disabled people a year could benefit from working closely with accredited trusted advisors like those at Wenman Healthcare.

He said: “Everyone irrespective of means is entitled to a free home assessment but this means there is a big waiting list.

“Properly trained people such as our team can assess and help these patients and get them home in partnership with the NHS, and in so doing help to remove the blockage and make space for those with reduced means.

“The qualification our team has allows them to prescribe complex equipment once an assessment has been carried out, such as seating ramps, grab rails, wet rooms, beds and stairlifts.

“It’s a perfect example of how the NHS needs to be smarter in how it uses the private sector to free up capacity in the healthcare system.

“The patients identified by the BBC’s data on bed blocking are predominately elderly and frail –exactly who our trusted assessors can help.”

Ian said he had come across multiple issues in the care system locally, including:

• An elderly woman who waited months for an NHS assessment to modify her wheelchair whose postural issues deteriorated while she waited. The solution was a £70 fix which took a matter of hours to complete
• Patients routinely having to wait months to be assessed for equipment by an occupational therapist and then wait again to take delivery of the equipment
• Equipment providers facing extensive wait times to get approval for minor variations on ordered equipment which has resulted in patients’ conditions deteriorating
• Patients being stuck in transitional care homes who are unable to get out of bed because of a lack of specialist seating, with family seeing the patient’s condition deteriorate

“Better co-ordination and recognition between operations such as ours in the private sector involving the NHS, carers, occupational therapists and physios could be transformational at little cost to the NHS,” Ian added.

“Instead, patients get stuck in the system, aren’t aware of the private options and the procedures tie the NHS up in knots. The result is lots of depressing statistics, prolonged delay and people suffering unnecessarily.

“We really hope local health service teams will sit up and take notice of the support private care providers such as ourselves can offer the health service.”

For more information on the free assessments offered by Wenman Healthcare, visit https://wenmanhealthcare.co.uk/home-assessments.