The Princess Royal is the patron of the College of Occupational Therapists and was a recent guest at Skills for Care's London office to launch their Living Well Through Activity in Care Homes toolkit.
That relationship is being further strengthened by a joint conference in our London office on Tuesday 22 July focusing on the contribution good reablement can make to those providing and receiving care and support.
Thurrock council is one of the local authorities who are offering reablement services in their community, but what does that actually mean in the Essex borough?
"Thurrock's reablement purpose is similar to the Department of Health's original vision, in that it is about supporting individuals to achieve and maximise their desired outcomes though the learning of new skills or regaining previously lost skills following injury or other changes in their circumstances," says occupational therapy team manager Gavin Beard.
"We provide an element of homecare where reablement is provided to help people maximise their skills and do things for themselves as opposed to things being done for them."
Effective and person centred reablement is critical in helping people lead the lives they want as they start to experience difficulties in everyday things that are important to them, or overcome the impact of a sudden health crisis, life event or a change in a long term condition that requires some form of social care support.
"Somebody will contact Thurrock council adult social care following, say, a stroke, an acute change in health status, or where someone's long term health condition has changed and they, for example, might be finding it difficult to maintain their personal care and therefore seek support.
"The joint reablement team may be identified as the most appropriate service to support the service user and where this is the case, they will do an initial assessment, identify if there is reablement potential and if there is, deliver support for a period of up to six weeks. Following reablement, the joint reablement team will then finalise the level of ongoing support needed.
"With Thurrock reablement there are two core functions – the first is to maximise independence and achieve the desired outcomes for the people we work with, and secondly to ensure the right level of support is identified to meet their long term outcomes during the reablement period."
Beard has been conducting a review of the reablement service and although greater achievements in service delivery can be achieved, the initial data on the benefits of reablement services are positive.
"The data I have got tells me the success rate for people who have been in reablement and exited it with either no ongoing support or a reduction in the level of support has been around the 50% mark, so it has been successful," notes Beard.
"The latest data within the last quarter shows we are now approaching the 65% mark, so we are still heading in the right direction."
The other plus point of Thurrock's approach is their total commitment to integrating the reablement services with local health partners to create one team with a wide range of skills.
"We are integrated with the North East London foundation trust to deliver reablement services, and within the team we have a team manager, co-ordinators, social workers, support planners, an occupational therapist, a nurse, a physiotherapist, and reablement workers who are care workers.
"What we have identified is the importance of a multi-disciplinary approach so that every member of the team is contributing to the individual's outcomes, and recognises which member of the team's experience and skills should be pulled on to achieve the desired outcomes."
But does all this effort by a team of dedicated professionals actually make a difference?
"As the occupational therapy team manager, I would say the reablement service does make a difference and if we look at the March reports, 95% of people who used the service said they were satisfied or quite satisfied with the service. 92.6% said the service improved or mostly improved the quality of their lives, and 88.9% that the service has enabled them to be independent or stay in their own home."
To find out more about reablement book your place on Skills for Care and the College of Occupational Therapists conference on Thursday 22 July.
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