'Outstanding' home care provider to offer bee therapy to elderly

A home care provider in Cumbria, which has just been rated by the care watchdog as ‘outstanding’, has revealed it is planning to offer bee therapy to the elderly when lockdown restrictions have been relaxed.

Westmorland Homecare which is based in Kendal has already purchased a hive and is now on the hunt for a colony of bees so it can offer ‘meet the bee’ sessions to some of the people it cares for.

Dr Chris Moss who set up Westmorland Homecare in 2017 with Dr Joshua Macaulay, said: "We decided to buy a beehive and some bees as everyone in the office had been talking about how we needed to help the local bee population. Bees work together for the common good, which emulates what we do with Westmorland Homecare."

The hive was put in Dr Moss’s garden but, after a while, some maggots were discovered in it.

“Most of the colony disappeared, so we put a plea out on Twitter to ask for some advice to see if we could save the last few bees,” said Dr Moss. The Tweet stated: “We are experts at caring for people – just struggling a bit with bees!” It contained a photograph of the hive, which they had named the ‘NHS Nightingale Bee Hospital’.

Their plea elicited a Tweet from Beekeepers Hour, which shares news, pictures, events and tips with other beekeepers around the world. It suggested they contact University of Cambridge ecology lecturer Lynn Dicks, whose Twitter account states she is working on sustainable farming and evidence-based insect conservation.

She suggested maggots often appeared in large numbers at the end of a bumble bee colony cycle to ‘clean up the mess’, so perhaps the colony was nearing its end anyway.

Westmorland Homecare was also contacted by local bee experts Karen Harper and Jacqui Cottam, who run The Bee Team, a volunteer-led organisation that aims primarily to encourage, enthuse, educate and inspire children and young people in the world of beekeeping. It is based at Heron Hill Primary School in Kendal and its young beekeepers are from the local primary and secondary schools.

Karen Harper said: “It is a privilege to look into a hive and observe the bees at work. The wonderful scent of a hive, the ability to feel the heat the bees generate and the different sounds they make while they go about all their various activities is quite addictive! It offers a fascinating insight to a small creature that is massively important to us.”

Now Westmorland Homecare is hoping the Bee Team can pay visits with the observation hive when social events for the people they care begin again after the end of lockdown restrictions.

“We like to offer engaging and interactive events at our social events and many of our clients enjoy animal therapy, so a visit from a travelling colony would be wonderful,” said Dr Moss.

Offering interesting experiences 'is part of our ethos of care'

“Offering interesting experiences to clients, such as observing bees, is part of our ethos of care.”

After being fed some honey water, the remaining bees in the company’s hive remained for another two weeks before flying off. But Dr Moss plans to “do some more reading about beekeeping” and to obtain a fresh colony. “Looking after the environment in which we live is very important and, even though we are going through COVID-19, we should not forget these things,” he said.

Westmorland Homecare provides hundreds of hours of care each week, which enable elderly and often frail people to live independently.

It was recently rated ‘outstanding’ in all five key areas following an inspection by the Care Quality Commission, the independent regulator of health and social care services in England.

It is the second consecutive time the company has achieved this rating. It was founded in 2017 by Doctors Josh Macaulay and Chris Moss. Both had experience of caring for people in their NHS roles as an A&E doctor and anaesthetist but wanted to help people more than while they were just in hospital.

“We are obviously delighted with the CQC report,” said Dr Macauley, who paid special tribute to the company’s staff: “They work tremendously hard and they really care and want to do the best possible job that they can.

“For the work they do to be externally and officially verified as outstanding in every area is a great accolade for them.

“The CQC inspected the service between February and June this year. They visited our office, spoke to people who use the services, to professionals who work with us - such as district nurses, GPs and the hospitals - and to our staff.”

On the key question of ‘‘Is the service safe?’, the CQC report stated that ‘people were protected by a strong and distinctive approach to safeguarding, including positive risk taking to maximise their control over their lives’. It added: ‘One person said, ‘I know I am in good hands with Westmorland Homecare – I feel exceptionally safe’.”

The report stated: “People were well protected from the risk of infection, including during the Coronavirus pandemic.”

The report highlighted the effectiveness of people’s care, treatment and support. It said people described the service as ‘exceptional’. Staff were ‘very well trained and exceptionally skilled’.

Families of those who had been cared for had thanked Westmorland Homecare, describing staff as ‘amazing’ and the care as ‘exemplary’. The directors had developed strong relationships with partner organisations and this led directly to an early discharge pilot scheme between the company and the local NHS trust, which had reduced risks around discharge and enabled early discharge from hospital for 16 people.

'This is what being cared for truly feels like'

People were ‘truly respected and valued as individuals,’ and the report quoted one person as saying: “This is what being cared for truly feels like. It’s wonderful”.

The report said: ‘The service was exceptionally person-centred and was adaptive and responsive to people’s needs.’

One staff member said: “I think Westmorland Homecare is brilliantly managed. I have never in my life worked for a more conscientious, caring company.”

Westmorland Homecare recently opened a new satellite office in Grange-over-Sands and Dr Macaulay said plans were well advanced to expand into a new area.

He added that Westmorland Homecare had been hand-picked to be on a working group led by Baroness Camilla Cavendish to look at how social services and the Government worked with care providers.

“It will examine how care is commissioned and funded and how we can change the way that staff are recruited, trained and encouraged into the industry,” said Dr Macauley.

• To view the CQC report click here

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