About us

Our vision and values:

Our vision:

Everyone should have the choice to be treated at home rather than in a hospital.

Our values:

What makes HomeLink Healthcare different from other providers?

1) Experts in Hospital at Home Services

We are 100% dedicated to Hospital at Home services and have been since 2016. We set up our first virtual ward in 2019. Our work has been shared across the country, is promoted by NHS England and used as a model par excellence. We work with hospitals, ICBs, consultants, local authorities, community providers and GPs across the country.

Read about our story here.

2) Founded and led by clinicians

Our leaders have decades of NHS experience, and understanding of clinical, managerial and regulatory roles. This wealth of experience gives us insight into caring for people at home.

We understand that a patient’s needs can change when they move from a ward into their own home. We recognise that physical face-to-face visits are necessary to assess a patient holistically.

Meet our team

3) Fast, effective and efficient mobilisation of services

We use the PRINCE 2 project management approach, led by a dedicated Project Manager. Typically, the full mobilisation process across six workstreams can, for new services, take 8-12 weeks. With an existing client we can mobilise a new pathway in as little as 4 weeks.

When we design and deliver a new service, we agree a comprehensive mobilisation programme. This includes finalising key performance indicators and critical success factors for the client and patients.

Once the service is launched, hyper-care commences. Hyper-care involves an increased level of support to ensure that the service is set up and runs effectively post go-live. After four weeks of hyper-care, we agree with our partner to move to business as usual. HomeLink Healthcare then commences monthly service reviews and quarterly business reviews. These are designed to ensure the programme and deliverables are on track.

*Mobilisation of HomeLink Plus Intermediate Care at Home will ramp up to a full ward over a period of time. This will be discussed with the client on a case-by-case basis.

Read our case study about mobilising a new service in Buckinghamshire

4) Compassionate and patient focused

The patient is at the heart of everything that we do. Patients are treated with respect, dignity and empathy. We support our staff to deliver the best possible care. Patients rate us extremely highly and have excellent outcomes.

98% of our patients would highly recommend us to friends and family.

Read our patient stories and feedback

5) Partnership working

The NHS has identified multiple challenges that adversely affect patient flow. We work with ICSs, ICBs, Acute NHS Hospital Trusts, Community Services, and Primary Care to resolve these challenges, which include:

• delays in discharge
• patients not routinely discharged at weekends
• patients not routinely discharged from midday
• blocked beds
• lack of community services availability
• inequality of access to community care
• delays in the commencement of packages of care
• community services are not always available in care homes
• delays in access to negative pressure therapy
• availability of same-day IV Therapy at Home services

We are flexible in our approach to partnership working and we treat each relationship as bespoke and on a case-by-case basis to ensure the best possible outcomes for each client and patient.

Sometimes, our partnerships with the NHS also involve working with other health and social care providers to ensure patient needs are met, complementing existing services, without duplicating service provision. This helps address inequalities in access to care provision.

Much of our work, particularly in our virtual wards, is augmented by technology. Although we do not develop our own technology or devices for virtual wards, we have relationships with top providers of remote monitoring equipment, both intermittent and continuous, which can be included in our service. Alternately, we are happy to use monitoring equipment already purchased by the NHS.

In 2023 we were nominated for the third time for an HSJ Partnership Award for our work across Norfolk and Waveney – Read the case study here

Read about our partnership working and how to work with us

6) Highly skilled multi-disciplinary team

We bring with us our own dedicated permanent clinical workforce. Our highly qualified and compassionate nurses, therapists and support staff deliver excellent outcomes.

In the year to October 2022 staff turnover was less than two percent. We do not use agency staff, ensuring continuity of care for patients.

7) Scheduling, reporting and record-keeping

We use the latest IT applications to schedule staff, store clinical records and to report on clinical incidents. This enables us to:

• ensure that there is always a suitably qualified, well-informed practitioner at the patient’s home on time, every time
• provide our staff with accurate, up-to-date patient information digitally, with hardware we provide
• report against a comprehensive set of KPIs and outcome measures in near real time, so commissioners have complete transparency that our service is delivering against contractual requirements.

8) Robust quality management systems

We provide safe, compassionate, holistic care in patients’ homes. Everything we do is patient-centric. We are a clinician-led organisation and are seen by our clients as ‘NHS-like’.

We are regulated and inspected by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) with services designed, monitored and managed to meet CQC’s regulatory standards. Through our Quality Management System, CQC notifiable events, incidents and complaints are reported, investigated and fed back at service review meetings and internal quality and safety meetings. This process drives a cycle of continual service improvement.

You can read our CQC Statement of Purpose here.

As an organisation that works with patient data, we take information governance extremely seriously and are proud to hold both the DSP Toolkit with a status of “Standards Exceeded” and the Cyber Essentials Plus certification.

We are ISO 9001:2015 accredited and are working towards ISO 14001:2015.

9) Advanced KPI reporting

Our clients are impressed by our extensive real-time reporting which includes patients, visits, outcome-based measures, and patient experience metrics. This activity data-analytics enables clients to quickly identify issues and share best practice.

Frameworks and accreditations:

CQC registration 

HomeLink Healthcare are registered with the Care Quality Commission. Our rating is ‘Good’. Read our inspection report 

ISO 9001 accredited 

We received our first ISO9001 accreditation in June 2021. In 2023 we passed our accreditation with zero recommendations for improvement, a rare event. Read more 

Cyber Essentials Plus 

We received Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation in December 2019. This means our Cyber Security measures have been independently verified by security experts and recognised by the IASME certification body. Read more 

Data and Security Protection (DSP) toolkit 

We understand the importance of protecting our IT systems from cyber-attack and are committed to securing our systems in line with the National Cyber Security Centre’s guidelines. We first carried out our first Data and Security Protection (DSP) toolkit assessment in 2018. In 2023 we achieved ‘standards exceeded’. See our certificate by searching for HomeLink Healthcare 

NHS SBS framework agreement 

In August 2023 we were reappointed as a supplier on the NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) Patient Discharge and Mental Health Step Down Beds Services Framework Agreement under Lot 1: Discharge to Assess and Lot 3: Virtual Ward Support Services. This means NHS partners can procure services with HomeLink Healthcare directly via the framework agreement. Read more 

Awards and acknowledgements

HSJ Partnership Award 2023: Best Healthcare Provider Partnership

In 2023 our Hospital at Home partnership with NHS Norfolk and Waveney Integrated Care Board (ICB) and NHS Trusts across Norfolk and Waveney ICS that was shortlisted. Our project was a testbed for Norfolk and Waveney ICS and independent sector collaboration. The project was set up to respond to exceptional capacity challenges. Read more 

HSJ Partnership Award 2022: Best Healthcare Provider Partnership

In 2022 our partnership with South East London CCG, Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust was nominated. The partnership was established to support community services severely impacted by COVID-19; increase capacity; and reduce the strain on existing teams. Read more 

HSJ Partnership Award 2020: Best Healthcare Provider Partnership

In 2020 we were nominated for our NNUH at Home service, a partnership with Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital. The partnership involved a hospital based clinical team actively identifying patients and moving them home (often on the same day) to receive treatment from community based nurses and healthcare assistants. The service was featured in an NHS England video that can be found here.  

Chief Allied Health Professionals Officer (CAHPO) Award 2022

In 2022 we were shortlisted for a Chief Allied Health Professionals Officer (CAHPO) award for our partnership with Lewisham Adult Therapy Team (LATT). The service saw the waiting list of 203 reduce by 85 percent to 30 in an 18 week period. Not only that, 69 percent of patients were seen within three days and improved patient outcomes were seen across the board. Read more 

Prestige Award 2023: Home Care Provider of the Year (London & SE)

In March 2023 we received the news that we had won a Prestige Award in the category: Home Care Provider of the Year – London & the South East.  Read more 

Global CFO of the Year Award 2023: Home Healthcare

In August 2023 our Chief Financial Officer, Simon Walters, won the Home Healthcare CFO of the Year. The prestigious Global CFO Excellence Awards 2023 are organised by Acquisition International. Read more  

Growing Business Awards 2023: Healthcare Provider of the Year & Finance Leader in Growing Business

HomeLink Healthcare has been shortlisted in the Growing Business Awards 2023, ‘Healthcare Provider of the Year’ category. Simon Walters, our Chief Financial Officer, has also been shortlisted in the ‘Finance Leader in Growing Business’ category. Winners will be announced in the award ceremony takes place in November 2023. 

Get in touch

To speak to a member of our team about our Hospital at Home services, call us on (020) 3137 5370 or contact us. You can tell us about your situation, and we can tell you more about our experience and how we might be able to help you.