Norfolk County Council Home Care Model

The homecare model in Norfolk has recently changed whereby the council has split Norfolk into PCN (Primary Care Network) areas. The council has appointed up to 4 providers to deliver home care in each PCN area.  The council explained to us that this change was being made to minimise the number of providers they work with in order to improve the quality of care in the industry.

Any provider could tender for the contract in any area meaning many providers were awarded contracts in areas they do not currently provide care in.  Larger companies were able to employ the services of a professional writer to complete their tender, which meant that smaller, more local companies were unfortunately not successful in being awarded a contract.  We feel it is important to explain that we do provide a very high-quality standard of care, which is reflected in our CQC inspections, and our standard of care was not the reason we were not awarded a contract. Unfortunately, the awards were not based on any physical inspections or the actual quality of care that companies provide and how they provide it but instead on points-based questions and answers. 

Support Me at Home believes that one of the main disadvantages of this new model is that individuals no longer have the freedom to choose which home care provider delivers their care if they are not privately funding their care themselves.

The chosen providers are large companies, and they have been awarded contracts in several different areas, all the way from Gorleston to Cromer.  They do not currently provide care in many of the areas they have been awarded, including in North Walsham, so they do not have knowledge of the local area.  These providers have been contracted to deliver a very high number of hours of care each week which means they have a very high number of clients to provide for and they may potentially be unable to meet the needs of those clients effectively. We have already seen many care calls being delivered late as these companies just do not have enough staff to provide efficient, high-quality care.  They are not local companies and therefore do not have local staff who know the areas well, meaning their staff spend a lot of their working time driving miles between clients.

Support Me at Home remains accredited with Norfolk County Council. This means individuals can source their care from us directly if they privately fund their care themselves or if they chose to use the Direct Payment scheme through the council.  We are a local care company, and all our staff live locally.  We ensure our rotas are very well organised to ensure our staff can arrive on time to care calls as they do not need to drive far between clients – this is something we really take pride in and is very important to us so that we always arrive when expected.  The feedback we receive from our valued service users speaks for itself, you can read all our compliments on our testimonials page here.

Why choose to come directly to us?

• We have over 10 years’ experience in providing high quality care at home.
• Our last 3 CQC inspections were rated ‘GOOD’.
• 98% of our visits are within 15 minutes of the booked time; this is much higher than other home care providers.
• We provide our clients with weekly rotas, so you know when we are going to arrive.
• All our carers live locally.
• We provide our care workers with regular high-quality training.
• We can provide emergency cover.
• We are proud that we have never had any formal complaints.

Should you be unhappy with your care provider, please do not hesitate to speak to us and we would be happy to help you speak to the council to ensure you receive care from a professional care company that can arrive on time.