One-stop care shop for West Sussex opens in Littlehampton

The Community Equipment Service, thought to be the largest of its kind in the country, means that occupational therapists, community nurses and therapists across the county will be able to order items needed to aid the care of people at home and have them delivered and installed on the same day if needed.

The depot, on the Lineside Industrial Estate, stocks 600 different items of equipment such as wheelchairs, bath seats, special beds and hoist systems, which will be available to people across the county as they need them.

Drew Russell, the contract director for the depot, described the new service as a "one-stop shop" and aims for 70 per cent of the ordering to be done online to help streamline operations.

Richard Cook is the national operations manager for NRS National Care from Nottingham, the company running the project, and he was pleased to see the long and complicated process of setting up the service finally come to fruition.

He said: "The whole point of the partnership is to improve the service by giving more access to a greater range of equipment to ensure that people in the community can live their lives more independently.

"Each of our 23 technicians can deliver and install any of the products we stock and each technician is dedicated to a specific area so that the whole of the county will be covered every day.

"We have a 10-year contract and we will spend 5m each year, so 50m in all. There will also be a lot of development over the next few years into Telecare, where people who are blind or disabled can be monitored remotely to check if they need assistance."

The county council's social and caring services and the West Sussex Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) used to provide community equipment to the county through two separate services.

This new integrated service will be run by NRS National Care on behalf of West Sussex County Council and the five West Sussex PCTs of Adur, Arun and Worthing, Crawley, Horsham and Chanctonbury, Mid Sussex and Western Sussex.

Dee Christie, community occupational therapy manager for West Sussex social and caring services, said: "We hope it will be more efficient, with no duplication of orders and when the other services get up and running we will be recycling equipment, cleaning and sterilising it and then re-using it.

"The project has brought together six big organisations, all with their own needs to be met, and we've managed to do it. We hope it will be a big success."