Cooksbridge Care Services in the Press
an interview with Susan Gray
SUE GRAY got fed up assessing which services people needed but could not find and decided to try her hand at providing them herself. Now she runs Cooksbridge Care Services which gives old and ill people the opportunity to be looked after in their own homes.
Sue's belief that the old and ill should have the right to be looked after in their own homes led her to found Cooksbridge Care Services ten years ago. After working in social care in London for 20 years, a move to Sussex led to a change in career.
She told me: "At that time, I thought I'd like to do something quite different but I was winkled out by the Brighton Children's Hospital which was short of social workers. After six years there, I became frustrated with making assessments of the services people needed but not being able to find them." Sue left the hospital in 1994 to start Cooksbridge Care Services based in Lewes, and became, as she puts it, a provider of services rather than an assessor of needs. The company was named after the village near Lewes where the first office was housed, in a refurbished railway station on the London line.
Now she has fourteen staff, five of them full-time, and 140 care workers on call. The company offers a variety of services including all-year-round care, short-term care for families needing a holiday, and a live-in service for the terminally ill or those coming out of hospital. Care workers combine the roles of house-keeper and companion. She said: "There is great pressure to move people out of hospital, and we can respond very flexibly to their needs. I think local authorities can no longer provide a person to live in for a week or two to assist with the return home and to prevent further hospital admissions."
Many of her care workers have had experience looking after the elderly in their working lives and like the idea of living with someone for a week or two at a time. "One of the great things about care work ", Sue said, " is that a huge variety of people can do it. My guess is that there are people sitting at home who have never had paid employment but would like to supplement their income by doing something really useful like this. Our skill is in matching clients with suitable care workers."
The service is used by elderly people who may need someone to do the shopping, cooking and ironing and/or provide personal care. Clients can be people who have physical or mental disabilities, who need care and want to stay at home but cannot manage on their own. Some may have multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy, others have had strokes or spinal injuries or been in car accidents.
Sue said: "Clients are visited to discuss their needs by a trained member of our team, and then matched with suitable care staff. We've built up a personal profile of each care worker, noting the kind of work they want to do, their levels of skill and experience." Nursing is provided by district nurses, who visit when needed.
Lesley Gorski, a retired psychiatric nurse and counsellor in the prison service, now runs a bed and breakfast in Lewes but in the winter, when visitors are thin on the ground, she becomes a Cooksbridge care worker. She said: "When money is a bit tight I ring up my bank manager and say 'I'm off to do a Cooksbridge' and he knows everything will be all right. I like the flexibility of the agency, the way they ask you where you'd like to be, and the ready money. For the last few winters, I've looked after a 90 year old lady for two or three weeks. I take her to the doctor, the chiropodist and hairdresser, do the cooking, the washing and look after the animals."
The Cooksbridge Care service costs from under £500 to just over £600 per client for a seven-day week, the cost reflecting the level of care required. Sue said it often works out less expensive than going into a nursing home. Care workers have their own room with a radio and television and two hours off each day. The company covers Sussex, Surrey and London and works closely with social services. It is registered as an approved provider of services and has links with national charitable organisations.
Sue said: "Many people tell me that staying put in their own homes is their top priority. I've often thought that I might find myself in a position where I didn't have that choice. I've always had a need to try and help and do something worth doing. I feel Cooksbridge Care Services is very worthwhile."
"Just because elderly people may need physical care and help, I don't see why they should have to give up everthing around them they love and move into a residential home."
"Seeing people not being able to live their own lives, however limited, has always upset me. I think people should have a choice. And we know what their choice is - to stay at home whenever possible."
