In January 2014, Healthwatch Barking and Dagenham were commissioned by Barking and Dagenham Clinical Commissioning Group to run workshops on the two new pilot services; the Community Treatment Team and the Intensive Rehabilitation Service. The workshops gave local people and organisations a chance to understand the new services and share their views and any concerns.

Since the event Healthwatch received concerns about the service not working as well as it should; including patients being not given the right support whilst they are at home and being made to feel that going home and receiving treatment at home would be the best option for them. Therefore the Intensive Rehabilitation Service was chosen to be part of the Healthwatch work plan. We looked at the patient experience, focusing on how the service is working and how service users feel about having treatment at home.

What service does the IRS provide? 

This team consists of nurses, occupational therapy staff, physiotherapy staff and rehabilitation assistants. It aims to provide an alternative to admitting patients to an inpatient unit for rehabilitation by supporting people within their own homes where appropriate. The team helps to enable discharges from hospital and reduces the risk of a hospital admission to people in the community, by providing intensive rehabilitation in the patient’s own home.

The team complete an initial assessment, to agree the needs and goals of the patient. After this the therapy begins.

Our findings 

We found that overall the service is working well, with only a few exceptions. It seems that the initially issues have been resolved as the service have evolved.

From the 74 respondents 85% were happy with having the service at home. Furthermore, over 91% of respondents indicating that they would be happy to be treated by the Intensive Rehabilitation Service again in their home.
This percentage indicates that the service is working well for those who receive it.