May 2024: Extra Care Court Newsletter

A note from Caroline Kaiser, Head of Extra Care London

May is here and we hope the April showers are over so we can enjoy some long spells of dry sunny days!

We have plenty of celebrations to look forward to all around London and Kent, as we celebrate Housing 21’s 60^th Anniversary. The celebration dates have been arranged for your scheme. Please mark these in your diary and make sure you join in the jubilations. You may have surprise guests from the Executive Team and some of our leadership team will be attending these too.

As you all know, the annual Resident survey was conducted last September and there was some learning and actions that were highlighted that the management team have taken up to ensure that there is an improvement in both the engagement and satisfaction ratings for all our residents. Therefore, you will be seeing a lot more of our Regional Managers visiting your schemes and readily available to speak to and support you with any complex issues. Please let your Managers know if there are any actions that can be taken to bring improvements within your scheme, and we shall listen to do our best to implement these changes.

For those of our services where care is also provided by Housing 21, the annual Care Survey was conducted in December last year and the themes that came out where we are committed to see improvement are around communication and information, and customer service and contact. We are committed to involving our residents in decisions and changes to their care and support and trust that this will be the experience of all our residents and their significant others.

We have listened to the feedback from Residents about receiving 2 surveys quite close to each other and so, this year it will be different. A combined survey will come out late summer and each resident will complete the section(s) that are relevant to them. Further communication will come out nearer the time.

Connecting our employees

The time has come for our frontline employees to take advantage of the digital transformation journey that Housing 21 has embarked on. Enter the Connecting Employees project and this month, all our employees will have access to Housing 21 accounts with the main features of this benefit being:

• MyView: The ability to view payslips, request holidays and update personal information
• MS Teams: Offering the ability to contact colleagues via the chat and call functions
• The Intranet (Sharepoint Online): Access to news, information and resources on the intranet

This is all exciting and I look forward to meeting more of the frontline teams!

A note from Jenny Graham for our Kent residents

Calling all Kent PFI residents, by now you will have received your annual survey and I hope you have filled it in. If you haven’t, please take the time to do so, this is your opportunity to let Housing 21 know how we are performing, and we use the results to plan our priorities for the coming year. There is also a prize draw, and you could be one of four lucky winners, who will receive a £50 voucher, just for filling it in! If you need any help to complete the survey, then please speak to your Housing Manager.

Resident Satisfaction is a key area for all of the schemes in Kent, so if you have any thoughts or suggestions, on how we can improve our services, please speak to your Housing Manager.

The dates for Housing 21’s 60^th Birthday events, have now been booked in for your schemes. Caroline and I am really looking forward to attending as many as possible and celebrating this milestone year with you all.