Blog: A Day as a Hospital to a Healthier Home Caseworker

Gethyn Peploe works for Care & Repair Newport as a Hospital to a Healthier Home Caseworker. He arranges repairs and adaptations, helping hospital patients to return home quickly and safely. Here, Gethyn talks us through his normal day.

9am

A normal start to the day: phones ringing, emails coming through, and I’ve just taken my 30^th referral of the month so far. This one is from an Occupational Therapist (OT), for a 96-year-old gentleman who’s had a stroke and needs adaptations prior to discharge. I’ve made arrangements to meet with his daughter at the property tomorrow.

11am

My first visit of the day. I meet with an OT and hospital bed supplier to look at room reconfigure prior to a hospital bed and hoist install. The lady will be bed-bound with all transfers hoisted, she is a keen crafter and has amassed a huge amount of crafting materials. Her brother is also present, we agree on a plan for bed placement.

We need to remove from the property a single bed, wardrobe, and display cabinet. I’ve had a clearance company on standby and they come to remove these items from the property – funded by cross-tenure ENABLE funding.

12.20pm

Next visit, another one requiring a reconfigure of a room to make ready for bed placement on ground floor. I’d spoken to daughter prior to visit, and she indicated there was an armchair to be removed to make space for the bed. The same clearance company attended with me and removed the armchair, we were also able to give the client the single bed from the previous visit, as it is in a very good condition. The daughter was very grateful as she says money is tight.

2.37pm

Email received from my manager.

“Hi Everyone,

I’m pleased to advise that we passed the AQS assessment yesterday and Neil (the assessor) will be recommending that our accreditation is renewed for another two years.

Once I receive the full report I’ll summarise and let you know the comments.

We done everyone!!

Jason”

We had a full day AQS assessment yesterday, very pleasing to have passed as a lot of hard work put in by the whole organisation on the day and prior to the assessment to meet the adjectives.

3.20pm

My final visit of the day is to the home of an 85-year-old lady, who is currently in hospital. Her son and daughter-in-law provided me with access to view the area where she has had two recent falls. She lives in a first floor flat with stair lift access. The falls both happened on the landing whilst she was using her walking frame.

When looking at the carpet I could see the boards were not level. When the carpet was pulled back, I could see a very poor refit of boards following a heating pipe lay some years before. Folded newspapers were used to pack, and a thin ply placed over the top, over time the boards had become unstable and dipped when weight applied. I therefore completed an application for funding to get the flooring in that area replaced.

4.15pm

I received a referral from the hospital social work team, an 83-year-old lady had a fall on an outside path whist waiting for a bus. She had sustained several fractures and a head injury. Her cousin provided me access, and I assessed for adaptations both inside and exterior of property. I have referred for adaptations via S@H and RRAP funding, including bi-lateral stair rails, shower seat with arms, key safe for carer access and metal handrail to front steps.

Just some highlights of the day. I have also taken additional referrals from hospital OT, physiotherapist and social work teams, liaised with contractors, admin, clients and next of kin, and of course the paperwork!

Care & Repair’s Hospital to a Healthier Home project helps patients all over Wales to ensure that homes are safe and suitable to live in. Find out more about Hospital to a Healthier Home.