Posted on Tuesday 12th October 2021
Nexxus Care was set up by the County Council to step in and provide care when no other provider is available in the market.
Staffordshire County Council’s in-house social care company successfully delivered thousands of hours of help during the Covid pandemic.
And as well as maintaining home care, and reablement services for those recovering from hospital treatment, the county council-owned Nexxus Care also launched a Staffordshire-wide lateral flow testing service.
Nexxus Care’s annual report for 2020/21 says that between November 2020 and March this year, up to 170 staff carried out 107,000 lateral flow tests at businesses, schools and libraries, as well as delivering a mobile service in rural areas and targeted communities.
Mark Deaville, Staffordshire County Council’s Cabinet member for Commercial, said:
To set up a fast, effective county-wide testing service, including staff recruitment, at short notice was an outstanding effort and played its part in our understanding of what was happening in our communities during the pandemic.
At the same time, I’m incredibly proud that front-line staff continued to deliver thousands of hours of help and care each month to vulnerable residents while facing the most difficult circumstances, and we owe them our thanks.”
The report to be discussed at this October’s County Council Cabinet meeting says that Nexxus Care now has 414 staff and its annual turnover of £6.24 million is a 60 per cent increase on the previous year.
Mark Deaville added:
Nexxus Care was set up by the county council so it could step in and provide care for people when no other provider was available in the market.
That means we rely on our staff enormously, but we are subject to the same recruitment pressures as the rest of the market.
These challenges were exacerbated by Covid and we have taken extra steps to maintain recruitment and training in the last year.”
Steps to support staff include improved terms and conditions; increasing digitisation to improve scheduling, reduce travel time and cut paperwork; and providing mobile phones for all staff.
And referring to the company’s reablement work, the report adds that the successful recovery rate of 62 per cent of patients not needing any further care or support saved the council an estimated £3.5 million over 12 months.