The types of Services Offered
Bethesda offers four types of service;
Permanent
This service is for people who choose to move into a Bethesda Home because they no long feel able or wish to live in their own home and need some degree of additional care and support from professional carers. There are four levels of care and support available: ordinary, intermediate, higher and advanced dementia. How these are categorised is set out in the scale of fees.
Although this service is described as permanent there is nothing to stop you from moving out of the Home if you change your mind or you no longer feel to need this level of care and support, although a month's notice of such a change is requested.
Short Stays
This service if for people who do not yet feel ready to move into a Bethesda Home, but who require a break from looking after themselves. This is also a helpful service for people who are looked after in their own home or the home of a family member, but whose carers need a short break and would like somewhere for their loved one to stay during this period.
Although the levels of care and support provided under this service are the same as that for the permanent service, a a lower fee rate is charged. This lower rate is usually limited to a six week period in a twelve month period, but from the 1 January 2023, the limit has been increased to a maximum period of twelve weeks..
Day Care
This service is for people who wish for some care and support, but who do not need to stay overnight. This service is very flexible and can be tailored to individual requirements subject to prior discussion. It is often a helpful way of assisting transition for people considering a longer, or even permanent stay in a Bethesda Home. A scale of fees applies.
Sheltered Accommodation
This is a service provided in the Bethesda Flatlets for people who can look after themselves but with the benefit of having someone else too look after the building and grounds and for having someone look out for them and to provide assistance in an emergency.
Therapeutic Techniques used by the Homes
There are no specific therapeutic techniques offered by the Bethesda Homes as part of the normal care facilities.
Trial Visits
You are welcome to visit the Home before you make any decision to stay. The first eight weeks of residence are mutually recognised as a trial period to allow for the possibility of a change of mind.
Limitations on Services Offered
Whilst we will always do our best to help eligible persons from our group of Churches, people are now approaching us with increasingly complex care needs as they stay in their own homes longer. This can sometimes mean that we are unable to offer a place to a new applicant, or that an existing resident can no longer be cared for by us, and in these cases an alternative service will need to be found. Such cases are rare, as every effort is made to allow our friends to remain in a Bethesda Home if that is their wish.
Every such case is judged on its own merits as no one person is the same as another. However, general guidance on the limitations of our services are as follows:
- For people with nursing needs we are dependent on district nurses and the willing cooperation of GP’s and, where relevant, a person’s social worker, to allow us to provide care for those individuals in the Home. If such support is not forthcoming or is withdrawn because it is felt that the individual would not/is no longer receiving effective care, then we would not be able to assist further and an alternative service would need to be sought.
- Due to the age of our buildings, we are currently unable to offer separate accommodation to people living with dementia. This means that in circumstances where a person’s symptoms are such that they are causing significant and sustained disruption to other residents, we would not be able to offer/continue to offer a place.
- Our Homes do not use physical restraint techniques, so anyone displaying symptoms requiring such techniques could not be cared for in our Homes.
- Places for people living with dementia are limited to one quarter of total occupancy for each Home. Once this limit is reached, we will not be able to accept new residents with this condition.