‘Supporting Together’ a specialist Home Care Consortium

Sharing policies, procedures and expertise, working collaboratively and providing an excellent service for Home Care Clients

Enhanced Health in Care Homes (EHCH), part of East Lancashire Clinical Commissioning Group are proud to announce a national first as a number of their Home Care service providers have joined together to form ‘Supporting Together’, a specialist Home Care Consortium. ‘Supporting Together’ is recognised by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) as an innovative and unique service offering quality care and support to clients in their own home and the first of its kind in the country.

Due to the national policy changes surrounding Home Care providers, there were a number of small providers that were at a competitive disadvantage to the larger ‘big brand’ options required by new framework legislation.

The original founding companies consisted of Home Care Mellor, Complete Care Services, Spring Cottages Home Care Ltd and Homecare Services.  These businesses partnered to create ‘Supporting Together – Crisis ’ and later, ‘Supporting Together’ to enable them to pool their resources, years of experience and expertise to create a larger, multi-skilled company able to bid on the national framework. These four home care services were later joined by Broadfield Care and Quality Care, further enhancing the consortium’s resource and skill set and growing the brand by adding Supporting Together East/Central and Bury as sub divisions.

Forefront of the consortium’s aims was to provide and deliver services and deliver continuity for existing clients, to keep staff continuity and minimise disruption. The consortium also wanted to retain their valued employees within a viable business structure.

Nadine Phillips, Partner of Supporting Together said, “Supporting Together’ is a great initiative that I am proud to be a part of.  We share policies, procedures and expertise to work collaboratively and provide an excellent service for our clients. We are thrilled that we have given our employees secure employment and the opportunity to develop a career pathway in the sector.  All of our staff are from   East Lancashire   with our supplies, uniforms and design sourced locally.”

Hayley Gregson of Supporting Together commented, “By coming together we have secured our businesses and provide a 24/7 partnership agreement to provide high quality of care in line with CQC standards.  We enjoy pooling our resources and are so much more than ‘just’ home help.  We have more opportunity to provide quality, share ideas and move forwards, with experienced senior staff sharing knowledge and common standards.”

Overall, Lancashire County Council (LCC) awarded just 34 home care providers for older people and people with physical disabilities across Lancashire, making Supporting Together’s appointment to the framework even more remarkable.

Adele Thornburn, Nursing and Quality Manager and Vanguard Programme Manager at East Lancashire CCG, commented, “It is wonderful to see innovative and forward-thinking professionals creating a unique consortium in the region.  It’s my hope that other agencies can see how successful Supporting Together’s ingenuity has been in answering the framework’s requirements.  By building a consortium they have looked at opportunities and options and created a valuable solution, whilst putting their clients, staff and their excellent home care services first.”