START (Short Term Assessment and Reablement Team) is our highly respected, CQC registered countywide homecare re-enablement service. The START management team is based in a central location in Shrewsbury. START currently works alongside the Integrated Care Service (ICS). This service is currently jointly commissioned by Shropshire Council and Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust, and is a locality-based health and social care team, which incorporates community and voluntary sector teams.
Our service is available during office hours 8:45am to 5pm Monday to Thursday and until 4pm on Fridays. We also provide an out of hours service between 7am and 10pm, 365 days a year for support staff, service users, carers and relatives.
The service aims to provide personal care and support to all Shropshire Council residents aged 18 and over who have been assessed as requiring short term support to help them regain the level of independence they had before they became unwell, or to achieve their personal new level of independence.
Our key objective is to support wellbeing by working alongside an individual to maximise their independence, and work with a range of people who have care and support needs as a result of age, disability or illness.
The START team provides personalised goal planning with the people it supports, whilst ensuring that all records are accurate and up to date.
We'll visit people requiring support and discuss how they can support them to become as independent as they are able by creating a support plan and re-ablement goals. We'll also identify, with our service users, activities where they are having difficulty, such as preparing food and drink, support with medication, washing and dressing, improving mobility or managing household tasks.
We'll agree goals to work towards with the re-ablement support workers. At first, service users may need several visits every day, but as they progress this may reduce. We'll monitor and review the progress regularly with the person requiring support. Every person we support will be given an expected time a support worker will be visiting, and how long the visit is likely to be for. We'll do our best to allocate regular members of staff to assist.
The team works closely with people it supports: the carers, relatives and friends. We ensure that the service is personalised and inclusive of ethnic, religious or cultural requirements. We regularly monitor the service we provide through customer feedback to ensure constant service improvement.
All team members are highly trained in re-ablement to be able to support people to meet their needs and take into account any specific requirements.
Amy Tipton is the registered manager, responsible for the day to day management of the service. Tanya Miles, executive director of our 'People' directorate, is the nominated individual.