When older people are settled in sheltered housing, changes are always going to be tricky. But Pennine 2000 knew fundamental changes were needed to improve the service, for both customers and staff. So when they took the plunge, they asked some of the tenants to help them get the message across.

Bob Horner has lived in a Pennine 2000 scheme in the village of Shelf, West Yorkshire, for about ten years. He admits he didn’t like the idea of moving in at first. “I didn’t want to live with a lot of old people!” But now he loves it, and values the social life in the community.

When he first moved in, there was a resident warden at the scheme. The service was very traditional, with big gaps, including inconsistencies, untrained staff working in isolation and ‘on call’ day and night and tenants were not involved at all. Sue Lewis, head of Supported Housing Services, says it was time for a complete rethink.

The new community-based service was put into place in 2003, offering professional, well-trained support officers who work in teams and are no longer resident. They cover different schemes and the wider community. The service is tailored to meet each person’s individual needs and preferences. Bob says not all residents took to the idea at first. “They felt vulnerable in the night and wanted a resident warden, but that is mistaken. The wardens had no medical training and could only call an ambulance. Now we have 24-hour emergency cover with the Careline alarm system.”

One of the biggest improvements is tenant involvement. Tenants are well informed, consulted and involved if they want to be. Coffee morning consultation meetings take place every quarter so tenants can have their say and be consulted on service-wide issues. It’s about quality of life: at Bob’s scheme, they have a great social life too, organised by tenants for tenants.

Tenants are involved in broader ways too. Bob is part of a group working on the design of the third extra care housing scheme. This has included fact-finding visits to schemes elsewhere so that things that matter to customers are part of the design for the next scheme. Bob is also a member of the Sheltered Tenants Forum who have recently pulled together good design standards for older people’s housing.

Bob has confidence in the new service, though he admits some tenants were very worried about the changes and needed to be helped to understand the benefits. “They said they want the old style service but those days are gone. Now the support employees are available any time and we have got a better service.”

Audit Commission inspectors seem to agree. They praised Pennine 2000 for taking difficult decisions to change the service.

Sue Lewis adds, “One of the biggest changes we made was to team working. Both staff and tenants were understandably very worried, but employees are now much more confident, they share skills, support each other and now find the job hugely satisfying. A service is only ever as good as its frontline staff, and at Pennine, we are extremely proud of our support officers. Ultimately, our tenants receive a much better service.”

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