Healthcare at Home

Healthcare at home is where a carer visits a person in their home to provide medical support detailed within an individual care at home plan.

In Nayland Care’s view, your care plan should promote independence. This is why personal care visits are often scheduled for when medication must be taken.

It may well be that you just need help reminding you to take your medication or it could be that you need a carer to administer it for you. Either way, details are contained within your care plan on how you are to be supported with medication.

Yes, but only if they have been trained to do so. That’s why all our home carers are fully trained – in accordance with the UKHCA medication policy - to provide medication support.

A carer’s exact level of involvement and support in administering medication will be detailed within your individual care plan, alongside specific dosages, timings, and doctors’ details.

It can be quite a responsibility remembering to take different medications throughout the day, some with food, others without. Having a carer support you with your medication will help limit how much your medication dictates your everyday living. Carefully planned medication support is often a welcome relief for people and can become effortlessly routine, with the right care.

It may well be that you’re happy to take your own pills or inject your insulin, but just need the reassurance of a second person that you have taken the correct dosage at the right time.

Or maybe you need to apply cream to an area that is difficult to reach on your own. Having medical assistance can be a real benefit.
Equally, you may need us to administer your medication if you are assessed as being unable to do so. Either way, with medication support, you are in safe hands.

There are three levels of medication support. Level 1 is where the person receiving support self-medicates with guidance, Level 2 is where the carer administers medication and Level 3 is where carers administer medication using a specialist technique.

The important thing to remember is that you’ll never be given a ‘level’ as a person since it might well be that you’re able to take your pills, but you need help administering medicated cream.

That’s why it is important that your care plan is carefully considered and, where required, includes input from your doctor.

NICE describes the term ‘medicines support’ as any support that enables a person to manage their medicines. What is included within an individual’s medication support plan varies depending on a person’s needs.

The assessment of a person’s medication support needs must form part of an overall assessment of needs and preferences for care and treatment.

An important point to remember is that a carer cannot take responsibility for managing a person’s medicines unless the overall assessment indicates the need to do so, and this has been agreed. The reason for this is to encourage independence, wherever possible.