What is complex care – and why is it so important?

Complex care refers to coordinated healthcare and support services for people who have multiple, chronic, long-term or severe medical conditions that require ongoing management from different healthcare professionals.

This healthcare support is personalised and specialised for those who need ongoing medical and social intervention, given by skilled care staff, to enable them to remain independent at home, reduce hospital admissions and manage complex symptoms.

Rather than only treating a single illness, complex care focuses on the whole person.

It can involve medical, psychological, behavioural and often social needs, with a multi-disciplinary and specialist medical team working together to meet the service user’s individual requirements.

Complex health needs may be present from birth, develop after a traumatic injury, or after receiving a life-limiting diagnosis.

Our highly trained and skilled complex care workers work alongside physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, dieticians, condition-specific specialist services, and other health and social care professionals to ensure service users receive tailored care to the highest possible standard.

This care is provided at home, enabling service users to reach their full potential, live as independently as possible, be active, and achieve their health and wellbeing goals.

Our complex care workers provide a variety of complex and social care from cooking and washing, tube feeding, catheter care and medical observations, to managing tracheostomy tubes, ventilators, spotting the signs of sepsis and how to respond to this, and more.

Training on long-term conditions is provided by Amanda Lambert, our Clinical Lead, and is tailored to the needs of the service user.

This includes training on epilepsy, diabetes and respiratory illness, as well as how to recognise deterioration, the administration of rescue medication, and how to respond to emerging medical situations relating to a specific condition and escalate care appropriately.

Amanda is a Registered Nurse who trains and assesses all of our complex care workers before deeming them competent to be able to care for the service user.

Registered Nurses will not have complex skills like managing a ventilator, unless they are working in a specialist area which requires it. However, we equip our complex care workers with these high-level nursing skills.

We work hand-in-hand with health and social care commissioners to help reach decisions for the best possible care required for each individual, and care is provided for as many hours as required.

We can’t stress enough how important it is to get this right. Service users have the right to have a fulfilled life, the right make their own choices, and the right to their preferred place of care.

If their preferred place of care is at home, the health and social care system has a duty to make this happen.

The pressure the NHS is under is immense and there isn’t enough education and support available in the community for service users or their families.

If you’re looking after someone with complex needs at home, it’s highly likely you’d have to ring an ambulance without the correct care, knowledge and training in place.

But when you have a group of highly trained complex care workers and wider teams looking after you, a lot can be dealt with at home rather than in a hospital setting, which is safer for the service user too.

Complex care is regulated by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England, and we’re proud to deliver tailored support, which is effective, safe and meets individual needs.

• For more information about or to discuss complex care requirements, call Caitlin Sacre, our Registered Manager, on 07470 995048 or email caitlin@mycaring.co.uk