The Short Term Care Centre is a 24 en-suite bedroom facility to help people recover from illness and ensure they don’t spend longer than necessary in hospital. The service, providing flexible residential intermediate care at the Patricia and William Venton Centre at Mount Gould in Plymouth, is run by Livewell Southwest and Age UK Plymouth. It is supported by NHS Devon, Plymouth City Council and voluntary organisations. In its first twelve months, there have been 400 guests and it is estimated the service has saved 5500 bed days from acute hospitals.
The service offers short stay step-up care providing quick assessment and intervention from the Community Crisis Response Team at Livewell Southwest to prevent hospital admission and step-down care for those medically fit for discharge from inpatient beds but requiring a period of rehabilitation and reablement to promote independence before returning home. This is done with the support of the Discharge to Assess Team at Livewell Southwest.
The purpose of the service is to
- assist with recovery from illness and/or rehabilitation through person centred goal plans to encourage and assist guests to achieve a sufficient level of independence.
- support the prevention of unplanned admissions to hospital and contribute to the reduction in hospital admissions, admissions to long term residential care, length of hospital stays and re-admissions to hospital.
- contribute to the reduction in demand for on-going care and personal budgets.
- contribute to the reduction in guests assessed as requiring two or more carers through periods of reablement and use of appropriate equipment to improve function and mobility to achieve single carer management.
- contribute to advanced winter planning arrangements and support commissioners to continue to deliver a high-quality service which includes the attendance to forums and meetings.
