NEWS
Deals and investment
WEP Clinical joins with Wren Healthcare London-based WEP Group Holdings is making a strategic investment in Wren Healthcare, a clinical nursing healthcare provider in the EU. Wren works with key industry stakeholders across Europe, including national health services, pharmaceutical companies, and private healthcare providers, to provide and administer treatments in the patient home. Its team of registered nurses have years of clinical homecare experience, ensuring care is delivered to exacting protocols and drug summaries of product characteristics. Under the new agreement, Wren will become part of the WEP team, allowing WEP’s patients, partners, and customers access to home nursing care services, such as: at home patient support for complex drug treatment and associated procedures; home nursing support for clinical trials and expanded access programmes; clinical
and disease area education; and provision of cross-therapy nursing support across multiple clinical specialities. Jas Khera, managing director of WEP Clinical, said: “WEP and Wren’s shared philosophy of putting the patient and customer first make this new partnership a very exciting step forward for us at WEP. The energy of the Wren team, combined with WEP’s long history and track record, will create a solid platform for future growth. We look forward to providing these new services that will help patients lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.” Iain Campbell, managing director of Wren Healthcare, added: “Recent challenges within healthcare have highlighted the importance of clinical homecare. The Wren Healthcare team remain committed to providing evidence-based patient centric care that continues to positively
impact those we support. WEP’s partnership, shared values, proven industry knowledge and experience further enhances the clinical services provided by Wren Healthcare. We look forward to
future collaborations building a platform for growth and shared philosophy of helping patients lead healthier and more fulfilling lives.” Wren is headquartered in Sandwich, Kent.
Social care
Call for social care complaint pathway to be made clearer The self-pay social care sector should be obliged to provide customers with details on how to make official complaints, according the Social Care Ombudsman. The Annual Review of Adult Social Care Complaints published today calls for “mandatory signposting” to make it clear how complaints can be made. The report outlines the trends the Ombudsman has seen in the complaints received about adult social care in England during 201920. During that time, the Ombudsman received 3,073 complaints and enquiries but only 430 were from people who arranged their care privately with independent providers. The disproportionately low number of complaints about
independent providers raises concerns that the independent sector is missing out on an “untapped seam of valuable learning and potential improvements to their services”. Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman said: “We’re pleased with how the adult care sector has worked with us to make almost 600 improvements to its services last year, which were agreed in our investigations. This is 7% more than the previous year, and they include things such as policy changes and staff training. “However, people who fund their own care are still underrepresented in the complaints we see, and the number has plateaued for the past couple of years. Each missed complaint is a lost opportunity to improve care services.”
HealthInvestor UK • September/October 2020
The Ombudsman upheld 69% of those complaints it investigated in detail – higher than the average uphold figure of 62% across all the organisation’s work. That uphold rate rose to 71% for cases specifically about independently provided care. The Ombudsman is now calling for the government to use the planned social care reforms to require providers to tell people, if they are unhappy with the services they are receiving, how to complain not only to the providers themselves, but also how to escalate that complaint to the Ombudsman. “Mandatory signposting will also be better for businesses. The social care complaints system in England is not a voluntary scheme but the current level of engagement varies considerably.
This is placing greater burdens on more conscientious providers while allowing weaker operators to avoid public accountability,” said King. “This undermines fair competition and consumer choice. Instead, there should be a level playing field, where the rules are applied consistently – in the best interests of users and businesses.” Professor Martin Green of Care England gave the review cautious welcome. “There are some interesting recommendations and we look forward to discussing how mandatory signposting would work. During the pandemic the sector has worked extremely hard to deliver the best possible care and I want to pay tribute to the adult social care workforce for its incredibly hard work,” he said.
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