A £2million plan to recruit more staff to help provide home care for older people needing help in Staffordshire has been unveiled.
Staffordshire County Council says demand for services increased during and after the pandemic.
It is hoped that the investment will help provide thousands of additional hours of home care across the region.
It follows a one-off investment of more than £4million last winter.
Cllr Julia Jessel, Staffordshire County Council’s cabinet member for health and care, said:
“The additional money already invested in home care has made a real difference for providers recruiting and retaining home care staff.
“However, there is a still a significant backlog of people who would benefit from home care and we have decided to employ people directly and use them in parts of the county that other providers are struggling to reach.”
Cllr Julia Jessel, Staffordshire County Council
The service would provide around a thousand hours of home care a week, working between 7am and 10pm every day.
The county council says recruits would be targeted from outside the home care sector, so that staff are not “poached” from other providers.
A meeting of the authority’s cabinet today (20th July) heard that staff shortages in the sector meant around 200 people who would benefit from care are currently doing without.
“A key focus of the home care plan is to include ‘reablement’ support so that people can regain their independence wherever possible and carry on as before, rather than become dependent on others.
“Current reablement services in the county, including those provided by the council’s existing successful home care provider Nexxus, primarily focus on those discharged from hospital.
“This will focus on helping those who haven’t been in hospital and need some support – and it will particularly target the north of the county to start with, where the backlog is greatest.”
Cllr Julia Jessel, Staffordshire County Council
