We're committed to working in partnership with local health services to:
- achieve a joined-up approach to health and social care
- provide a platform for accelerated improvement and service excellence
- enable our residents to live happy, healthy and independent lives (see www.livewellyork.co.uk)
Our Health, Housing and Adult Social Care Services are proactive and ambitious in their approach; adopting a preventative model, providing opportunities for residents to help themselves and enjoy independent living, whilst protecting the most vulnerable.
About Housing Services
Our Supported Housing Strategy describes our vision to ensure the right supported housing options are available, at the right time and in the right place, for those that need them. Through this strategy, we aim to increase or maintain independence, helping to prevent future reliance on services. Our vision is informed by and contributes to the wider aims and objectives of the York Health and Wellbeing Board.
Our Housing Strategy is critical to our wider success and future ambitions. Supported Housing is part of a wider network of services including Visiting Care, accommodation, education, training, volunteering, employment support, handyperson services and health-related support.
Our strategy is based around services for:
- older people (aged 55 years and over)
- people with mental health issues and/or learning disabilities
- young people (aged 16 to 25 years)
- offenders or ex-offenders
- people involved with drugs, alcohol and substance misuse
- people who are homeless or threatened with homelessness
York has an ageing population; over 75% of older households are owner-occupiers, and specialist accommodation is no longer always the preferred option for older people. We want to support older people to stay in their own homes for as long as possible, which includes providing the right advice and information to help them make informed choices.
We ensure the Supported Housing we provide is able to meet the changing expectations and needs of older people (in particular, the rise in cases of dementia) and reduce the need for 24-hour residential care.
We've established strong partnerships along with thriving voluntary and community sectors. We're pioneering in our approach to creating and enhancing community assets - we're building more housing and affordable accommodation, bucking the national trend. We believe that with our integrated approach, we can genuinely make a difference in our communities.
About Health and Social Care Services
York is a reasonably affluent city which results in our residents enjoying good life expectancy and generally good health. However, we remain aware of inequalities in our city which mean some people do not enjoy these health benefits.
We're faced with a challenging situation where we have less financial resources but demand for health services is growing. Some of this demand is related to issues that our public health services have a duty to tackle. Issues around lifestyle choices, for example: smoking, lack of physical activity and poor diet. With less resources to tackle these issues, this means we need to work in a way which supports people to make the right choices for themselves, and that the right choices are the easy choices.
It is a challenging time for us, but by working with our partners in the voluntary and community sectors, and the NHS, we aim to tackle this challenge head on.
Our Adult Social Care Team have moved 82 places from the bottom, to the top quartile. We also manage our resources very well, and we're on target to stay within our budget and make required savings.
Working in Health, Housing and Adult Social Care Services
Our greatest assets are our people, who do their best to ensure everyone is given the best opportunity to enjoy a happy and healthy life; we have talented, experienced and very knowledge teams, with successful track records.
Whilst we're high performing, we have ongoing challenges. We have a growing ageing population, there are financial challenges with our partners and our funding base is low compared to other regions.
Whilst full employment creates prosperity, it also creates recruitment challenges particularly for care providers, especially when the cost of living is high.
We rise to the challenge of supporting the range of needs of street sleepers, and have achieved 'gold' standard for our homelessness provision.
Also see
Recruitment Team
Human Resources (HR) Business Centre