Housing with Care

An extra care scheme is purpose-built accommodation where our service users live in a self-contained flat, with their own front door, but our staff are available up to 24 hour a day to provide personal care and support services. These schemes prove an alternative to residential care.

• Supported by a Registered Manager and Care team
• 24-hour emergency help through an alarm system
• A minimum age for residents, usually 55 or 60
• Communal lounges allowing our service users to socialise as and when they wish
• Self-contained flats allow the service users to stay independent

Mears Care has championed the model of outcome-based services in domiciliary care for a number of years and has worked in partnership with others, including the LGIU and commissioners to understand what could be achieved through outcome based services and how the model can be implemented.

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We subscribe to the ethos of extra care services as we believe that they offer people a true alternative to residential care that enables those to remain as independent as possible in their own home.

From our experience we have also seen first-hand how a well-run, inclusive extra care setting can support people’s social well-being as well as their physical needs. We believe that an extra care facility should provide excellent care and support but also provide a community hub for the tenants living there and residents of the wider community. It is for these reasons that the expansion of our extra care business has been a key strategy aim for the past decade and continues to be as we further integrate services, to provide a complete end to end service to commissioners and tenants.

Mears Care has experience of providing care and support services to a wide range of clients and we provide support to the following groups of people:

• Older People
• People with Dementia
• People who have mobility issue due to illness or stroke
• People with mental health needs
• People with physical disabilities
• People with learning disabilities
• Those with acquired brain injuries
• People with spinal injuries

Mears provides person-centred care which works with our service user’s, rather than for them. This helps maintain independence, autonomy and dignity, and is underpinned by:

• Physical and psychological needs
• Beliefs
• Culture
•  Likes and dislikes
• Family, friends and their ‘circle-of-support’
• Capacity

At Mears we see individuals first, seeking to find out as much as possible about our service users and identifying personal goals and outcomes. This involves:

• Initial assessment of referral
• Initial care planning and risk assessment completed with the service user
• Enabling full-service user participation with services including sign language interpreters and translation services
• Completing a review within the first six weeks to ensure services are meeting individual needs

Mears Care provides a wide range of services from low level domestic support to full 24-hour, live-in services. We support people to live as independently as possible in their own homes by assisting with the following areas:

• Personal care
• Dressing and undressing
• Medication management
• Nutrition and fluid intake
• Eating and drinking
• Continence care
• Accessing the wider community and social activities
• Housework
• Laundry
• Running errands and correspondence assistance
• Support to make and attend appointments
• Basic pet care
• Respite care for informal carers and next of kin
• Support with rehabilitative exercises

We offer a flexible, responsive service that fits around our service user’s routines. We concentrate on people’s strengths and build upon these; working with the wider multi-disciplinary team to identify abilities and capabilities of each service user and whether these can be built upon and to what level.

We believe an extra care scheme provides the perfect environment for prevention and early intervention; enabling us to assess needs and implement support to reduce long-term needs.  This teamed with 24/7 on-site team ensures we are in a prime position to be responsive; identifying changes in need quickly and implementing measures to minimise these as far as possible.  

To enhance the strength based approach we have established;

• Policies, procedures and staff training centred around these principles
• Digital personalised support planning.These plans incorporate commissioner-identified outcomes broken down into individual, measurable and achievable outcomes
• Service user participation plans
• Quality procedures to monitor services, assess against outcomes and supporting positive risk enablement

“I am very happy at Blaise Weston Court, my mother lived here being cared for until end of life. Care staff are very caring and are like my family.  I run bingo weekly which I enjoy.  I do monthly raffle helping raise money enabling all residents to enjoy activities within scheme and day trips” Resident

“Moving here was the best thing I have done, and I couldn’t imagine not being here. I feel so much better about life, I feel safe, I feel valued and respected for being me.” Willow Court SU Feedback