Healthwatch Ealing Housebound Research Report

Healthwatch Ealing launched the Approaching Housebound People research project in October 2019. Unfortunately, due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, face to face interviews with Housebound individuals were not possible and the project was suspended. 

The research was designed to understand what aspects of care are being effectively delivered and what ones need to be explored for further development. Most importantly, this research would provide individuals who had first-hand experience of Homecare with the opportunity to outline what they thought needed to change in order to improve the service.

However, with the preliminary findings from the initial project and the need for local health partners to understand how these individuals were cared for during the pandemic, Healthwatch Ealing relaunched the Housebound Research Project in August 2021.

From August to October 2021. Healthwatch Ealing worked with Ealing Council to distribute paper surveys to Housebound individuals. The Housebound survey was designed in collaboration with Ealing Council and asked individuals a series of questions related to their health & social care, mental wellbeing, the use of digital technology and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic.

The experiences and opinions of these individuals would shed light on the difficulties and disparities that they have been faced with since they started receiving social care and underline how we, as an integrated health and social care system, can further improve the care that Housebound individuals in Ealing receive.

In total, 192 individuals provided their feedback. Individuals’ regular care staff were one of the most common sources of positive feedback with individuals praising carers for their high quality of care and personal compassion with the findings indicating that more regular interactions with carers helped to prevent many individuals from feeling lonely and socially isolated during this time.

In addition to the care itself, a significant proportion of individuals also indicated that communication from their Homecare provider regarding changes to their care had been satisfactory. Last, Pharmacy services and the distribution of COVID-19 related information was widely praised. However, the findings clearly show that there are inconsistencies in the delivery of Homecare and support for Housebound individuals.

The findings are discussed in more detail in the main body of the report, which is complete with areas of good practice, areas of development and recommendations.