The Health Service Journal has made it known that a private company – Care Rooms Ltd – have approached Cambridgeshire County Council with their money making scheme which they claim will “help the NHS”. The service known by many clinicians and campaigners alike as Care B’n’B is a rent-a-room scheme for (medically fit wahtever that means) patients leaving hospital after an operation.
The HSJ revealed that the company were forced to abort their first trial in Essex last year after patients and social care directors raised safeguarding concerns about care being provided by non-NHS trained non-care professionals. But in true entrepreneurial spirit the company have not been deterred and are ready to launch the scheme again… you know the old saying…
After talking to campaigners this week at Southend Save Our A&E we know that the trial scheme was disgraced by professionals up and down the country and was abandoned within one week of being announced. So now it appears in Cambridgeshire and the company are trying their luck with the local authority rather than the NHS. They have adapted the scheme so it is now merely a room for rent with no medical/clinical care required by the host – hence even more justification for the nickname Care B’n’B.
We’re looking deeper into the implications of the scheme and why the county council are, according to Anna Bailey – Chair of Adults Committee, setting up a “working group” to look at piloting the scheme. We’re grateful to the Hunts Post for listening to concerns and successfully raising alarm bells about this scheme which claims to provide choice (that word) but is clearly nothing more than a private company taking full advantage of a business opportunity created on the landscape of a delberately under-funded NHS and social care system that is now ripe for more private company control. Read the full online article here
Paul Gaudin the CEO of Care Rooms Ltd. (a former bagel millionaire) wrote a lovely letter responding to questions being asked by us, the Hunts Post and HSJ.
Here it is. See what you think.
Full Support on hand for hosts
Last week’s front page article about CareRooms raised some important questions which I thought would be helpful to answer. The service is not funded by the NHS or the local authority. We have privately funded the project with the aim of providing choice to patients, families, the NHS and health and social care. We are therefore very careful to ensure that we have covered the risks, as much as possible.
Having personally experienced the pressures on our NHS and social care teams, I wanted to do something to try to help our communities to help their NHS to help them.
Hosts can be lonely, socially isolated people who’ve lost purpose and want to get involved in their communities and to earn some much needed income. They provide a short stay, safe room for low risk, medically fit patients (not those with dementia). This helps them whilst their home is modified or a care package is set up. Other uses are for those who are vulnerable after a fall at home or need some respite care.
Each host is carefully selected to be just the right person for the job. CareRooms provide the safeguarding system and training and we are on hand locally to help if there’s a problem.
We are using the latest patient monitoring technology to minimise the risk of ill health or in the unfortunate case of a sudden health issue or death, then we may well know before the host does and we have full procedures to support the family and to protect the host.
We are looking for local Cambridgeshire hosts to help their communities by unlocking the potential of their spare rooms.
Paul Gaudin,
Founder of CareRooms.com
London
We’ll be responding very soon.