NHS England visit Rainbow Living’s Exeter house
Rainbow Living was delighted to recently welcome two prominent NHS England members to the charity’s Exeter Rainbow House.
Dr Dominic Slowie, National Clinical Director for Learning Disability, and Hannah Iqbal, Policy Advisor for NHS England Learning Disability Programme, approached Rainbow Living to find out more about the charity’s bespoke model of supported living housing and how they support tenants, and their families, in making decisions about their individual personal care.
The visit forms part of a large scale national programme that Dr Slowie is leading for NHS England, called Transforming Care. The Transforming Care programme aims to improve services for people with learning disabilities, including system-wide change to enable more people with learning disability to get the right care, in the right place to meet their needs, and that they are involved in any decisions about their care, giving them the right to the same opportunities as everyone else.
Trustees from Rainbow Living were thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to NHS England about the unique housing model they have developed, which provides high quality, affordable and specially adapted accommodation for adults with learning disability, enabling them to live as independently as possible in supported living within the community.
Speaking after the visit, Dr Dominic Slowie said: “One of our stated aims is that people with learning disability should have a choice about where and with whom they live, and it is very encouraging to see Rainbow Living achieving exactly this; the charity demonstrates a clear commitment to allowing people to live in a Rainbow home for as long as they want to, with encouragement and support to participate and contribute to the wider community.
“It was inspiring to hear and see directly what shared vision, passion and commitment can bring about in terms of creating something new and effective in meeting the needs of our most vulnerable fellow citizens, and I hope that we might provide an opportunity for Transforming Care Partnerships, particularly in Devon, to learn from what Rainbow Living has achieved.”
Jerry Chew from Rainbow Living said: “It was an absolute pleasure having Dr Slowie and Ms Iqbal at our Exeter Rainbow House and talking to them about our sustainable housing model which meets the individual needs of our tenants. We work hard to give learning disabled adults the right to choice and influence over where and with whom they live because we believe they should have the same opportunities as everyone else to make a home of their own outside of the parental home and be encouraged to fulfil their own potential.”
