I can get my coffee just how I like it, but can I get my healthcare just how I like it too?

Every day we are bombarded with myriad choices. A quick visit to a coffee shop, and we are faced with tens of alternatives about how we would we like our favourite beverage: are you drinking in or taking out , small, medium, large, with or without milk, full fat, semi skimmed, skimmed, soya or almond milk, double or single shot, medium or strong blend, not to mention syrup … and the choices go on. Yet when we have needs regarding ongoing healthcare our choices are much more limited. The NHS in all its glory does an amazing job, and I should know, I’ve worked with the NHS for over 30 years and experienced the brilliant care it can provide first-hand. However, acute hospitals seem to have a centrifugal effect, acting as a magnet, pulling people in and holding them there. The pull into the acute hospital is often for very good reason. But, once the need to be ‘hospitalised’ has passed the choices regarding how and when we leave hospital, how ongoing care needs can be met, and the choices surrounding the who, what, where and when of ongoing care is limited. This needs to change.

Many patients I have had the privilege to care for, often with life limiting and chronic illness, have wanted to complete their treatment and receive care at home. The reality is that despite policy calls for new models of care, and more clinical home care, real choice remains limited. This needs to alter. I’ve been very fortunate in being able to address the need for change, and with a team of likeminded healthcare professionals and senior managers HomeLink Healthcare was born.

The aim of HomeLink Healthcare is to readdresses the balance, to work with the NHS to deliver new models of care and to free up hospital capacity for those who need it most. Delivering a service offering real choice for patients and access to hospital at home care. We are not a bunch of entrepreneurs seeking to asset strip the NHS, but rather a group of likeminded people inspired to do things differently, to save the NHS money, to reinvest in services which need it most, to help drive efficiency, and to offer great value, high quality home based clinical care.

Jill Ireland, Managing and Clinical Director HomeLink Healthcare