Case Study: Nash Homecare and Hertfordshire Independent Living Service (HILS)
Nash Homecare provides domiciliary care to adults living in Dacorum, and HILS provides meals on wheels and other services to help older and vulnerable people stay happy, healthy, and independent at home. While HILS specialises in light-touch preventative services, Nash Homecare are experts in personal care.
Rachel Gardner, Care Manager at Nash Homecare, says “We have found working alongside HILS very beneficial to our clients and their families. A lot of the clients we visit need a cooked meal, as they may not be able to cook or stand for long to prepare food. Some of our clients also use HILS’ teatime service, as well as the hot lunch time meal. This means they are eating two healthy balanced meals, which accommodate dietary requirements like diabetes or swallowing problems.”
Sarah Wren, HILS Chief Executive, agrees. “If a client can receive a hot lunchtime meal from us, their domiciliary carer is freed up to focus on doing what they do best – providing excellent personal care that they alone are qualified to provide. Our services can be packaged together in a way that is beneficial for the client, but also to the organisations involved in a client’s care.”
Rachel continues, “Over the pandemic HILS really stepped up their game and were brilliant in helping our clients with meals that maybe family members would normally provide but due to lockdown they were not able to visit. So, we got in contact with HILS after gaining consent from the clients and their families to start up the meal service. This helped to put a lot of our clients’ and their families’ minds at rest, to know their loved ones were being looked after by both organisations.”
HILS also offers a service supplying and fitting keysafes outside clients’ properties. Rachel says, “This is handy for us to recommend to families when we deliver care just in case we are unable to gain entry, or it may be that the client themselves is not able to mobilise to answer the door, so a key safe is then put in place.”
Nash Homecare have found the HILS website to be a good source of information for their staff and clients. “HILS regularly updates their website with useful topics. For example, there is a ‘scam aware’ information page that we share with carers, clients, and families. This helps us to be extra vigilant and keeps the carers aware of things to look out for.” Rachel says.
“We share information about HILS with our care packages as well as with our carers and other professionals we work closely with like Pharmacists and Occupational Therapists. Working alongside HILS helps our clients and families as some have no idea where to start looking for the information needed, and HILS’ website is very user-friendly and easy to follow.”
Sarah adds, “Both HILS and Nash Homecare want to help people to live independently at home, our services complement each other to provide the best possible support for the client.”
Find out more about Nash Homecare on their website https://www.nashhomecare.co.uk
