St Helens Council and NHS organisations are working together in partnership to strengthen the help provide to people attending the A&E department.
We are a team of social workers and assessment and review workers working within the A&E department at Whiston Hospital.
Working with all professionals across the A&E Department, you will be referred by a health professional.
Should you require admission to hospital and support with your discharge, this will be provided by the Contact Cares, on site Integrated Discharge Team.
Our role is to ....
- support people who do not require an admission to hospital for medical reasons
- signpost to appropriate support in the community
- support to more appropriate community based placements
Our opening times are:
Monday to Friday - 8.30am to 8pm
Saturday and Sunday - 8.30am to 5pm
Contact Cares is a multi-disciplinary team consisting of Care Managers, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and General Nursing, who will co-ordinate and carry out assessments from referral requests. The assessment will determine the most appropriate services to meet your needs. If services are not required, Contact Cares will provide signposting, advice and guidance to assist you.
Examples include - this list is by no means exhaustive:
- Rehabilitation
- Falls Team
- Audiology
- Careline
- Social Care
- Reablement
- Voluntary Services
- A range of Health Teams
- Nursing Assessment
- Contact Cares Response
- Medicines Management
Referrals are accepted for anyone living in St Helens or registered with a St Helens GP.
Methods of referral are:
- Contacting Contact Cares on 01744 676767
- Via a Health or Social Care professional e.g GP/District Nurse/Social Worker who can contact the team via dedicated telephone lines.
- Self referral online
Hours of Operation:
- 8.00 am to 10.00pm - 7 days per week.
A multi-disciplinary service with a primary role of promoting independence in people 18+ including those with mild to moderate mental health issues. The service can be provided at home or within an intermediate care unit.
Our goal is to maximise independence whilst minimising dependency on ongoing services. People are supported to retain or regain functional abilities. Therapists and Intermediate Care Support Workers will assist the person to follow a therapy programme, which will remain under review by a lead therapist.
The service is aimed at maximising independence, and intervention will vary in length in line with individual need, and could be as little as a few days.
Professionals in the team:
- Occupational Therapists
- Physiotherapists
- Nurses
- A Community Psychiatric Nurse
- Assistant Practitioners
- Intermediate Care Support Workers
Aims Of The Service:
- To prevent inappropriate admission to acute hospital care
- To facilitate timely hospital discharge
- To prevent unnecessary admission to 24 hour care
- To enable people to remain in their own home environment
- To prevent the need for long term domiciliary care packages
Accessing The Service
You can be referred by any professional involved in your care for example:
- General Practitioner (GP)
- Nurse
- Social Care
- Voluntary Agency
- Hospital
Or you can self refer via Contact Cares on 01744 676767
The Brookfield Centre aims to
- Provide a pleasant, safe, homely environment,
- We encourage people to make choices and exercise control
- We respect the right to privacy dignity and for people to exercise their human and legal rights.
The Registered Manager of Brookfield is Sharron Fisher, if you wish to speak to her or a member of her team please contact them on 01744 677735
The centre supports the community and the hospital with a variety of services.
Maple Lounge
Maple Lounge provides step down beds from hospitals, for people that are medically fit for discharge from hospital but not quite ready to go home.
Whilst in hospital, service users are assessed by a hospital social worker to determine if their needs can be met at Maple Lounge
Acorn Lounge
Acorn provides a bed based reablement service to help people remain independent.
Service users can access Acorn Lounge from hospital or the community following an intermediate care assessment
Blossom Lounge
Blossom Lounge provides day care to support people who live in the community and their carers. You can request to attend day care through the Contact Cares Team who will progress an integrated care assessment
Transport
Transport is provided for vulnerable adults and older people whose needs have been assessed by a Social Worker.
This is to provide assisted travel to council day services. The service also supports Whiston Hospital to assist with timely discharges from the A&E department, and transfers from people's homes to other community venues.
Transitional Tenancies
These are flats in two of the Extra Care Housing Schemes in St Helens that allows people to try independent living in a supported environment.
A Social Worker will complete an integrated assessment to enable a referral to the service.