HEALTHWATCH Shropshire has published the results of a survey to find out people's experiences with home care across rural areas.

Home, or domiciliary, care is often seen as the 'front line' of social care delivery and is critical to the longstanding intention to enable people to 'age in place'.

In a project undertaken prior to Covid-19, Healthwatch Shropshire asked those receiving home care in Shropshire to tell them about their experiences.

Lynn Cawley, chief officer of Healthwatch Shropshire, said home care continued to be challenging in rural areas but was reassured by the positive feedback.

"Provision of home care comes with its challenges particularly in rural areas but it has been reassuring to hear from the majority of people who responded to our survey that their experience has been good," she said.

"We want to continue to hear about home care services, particularly how the service has been delivered during the pandemic, including to those people who have been discharged from hospital."

The results of the report found that service users who responded to the survey were very happy with their experiences.

Continuity of care was found to be an issue with 24 per cent of respondents saying they felt they saw too many different carers.

More people who were funding their own care felt involved in decisions about their care than people who were receiving council or health funded care.

And self-funders were also more likely to feel the carers visited them at the times they wanted compared with people receiving council or health-funded care.

Care providers they heard that recruitment was increasingly difficult for the sector and consistency of care can be difficult to achieve.

The rurality of the county also posed extra problems for providers in respect of travel time and hospital discharges was posing problems for providers because of a lack of communication, mixed messages or failed discharges.

On a positive note for some, technology is making the administrative side of the business more efficient and improving communication.

The report can be found at www.healthwatchshropshire.co.uk/report/2020-09-03/home-care-shropshire