Complex care is for people living with long-term health conditions who need help to manage their symptoms. While a complex care worker can also help with traditional home care, like cleaning, meal prep, companionship, and personal care, they’ll be trained to provide specialist healthcare support.
We offer complex care, including live in care in Banstead, for those who need it.
Who would benefit from complex care?
While complex care is designed to help individuals who have long-term physical or mental health conditions, some people are happy to manage their symptoms and daily life themselves. Being diagnosed with a medical condition doesn’t necessarily mean someone needs specialist care.
However, if daily tasks are becoming difficult or someone has medical needs they can’t meet themselves, a specialist care worker can help.
What’s the difference between personal care and complex care?
Complex care workers are specially trained to support a range of different physical, medical and emotional needs.
With standard home care, a care worker can provide medication reminders and open packaging, but they’re not qualified to administer it, whereas a specialist care worker may be trained to give insulin injections. Another example is nutrition support – a complex care worker can handle PEG feeding, while a home care worker can only help with meal prep and cooking.
Conditions we support
We can provide ongoing support for anyone with a chronic illness, degenerative disease, learning disability or mental health condition. Some people may need short-term complex care. For example, for the first few weeks after major surgery, or following a serious injury.
If you have specialist requirements and need complex care, we’ll match you with someone with the right skills. Here’s an example of some of the conditions we support:
- stroke and acquired brain injuries
- dementia and Alzheimer’s
- epilepsy
- autism
- Down’s syndrome
- Parkinson’s disease
- stomas and catheter care
- mobility issues
Palliative and end-of-life care
Complex care includes palliative and end-of-life care. Palliative care focuses on keeping the individual as comfortable as possible, and managing their pain and symptoms when they have an illness that cannot be cured. That doesn’t necessarily mean the individual is nearing end-of-life, they can receive palliative care for years.
End-of-life care is when someone appears to be in the final months of their life. It allows them to stay at home and die with dignity, while providing support for their family.
The care team generally works alongside other healthcare professionals and the wider care network to deliver holistic palliative and end-of-life care.
Live-in care
When someone has intensive healthcare needs, live-in care may be the best option to support them.
A team of 3 care workers will be assigned to the person receiving care, and they’ll work shifts so that someone is there around the clock. Usually, the primary care worker will be there for 4-6 weeks, then have a 1-2 week break when the second will take over. The third care worker is available to cover holidays and sickness.
How to arrange complex care
- Drop us a line to discuss your needs. We’ll arrange a time to visit the person receiving care at home to thoroughly assess their needs and make sure it’s a safe environment for everyone.
- We’ll put together a written care plan detailing how often we’ll visit and the tasks our care worker will be responsible for. This can be adapted, updated, and will be designed around the person being cared for – with their input if possible.
- We’ll find a team of care workers with the right specialist skills to support the person’s unique needs, and then we’ll start visiting at the agreed time and date – or agree the move-in date for live-in care.
No two people are the same, and neither are their care needs. If you’d like to discuss complex care, get in touch.