New accommodation to help South Yorkshire people stay independent for longer

Rotherham Council is pleased to announce the formal opening of four adapted, self-contained apartments in Shaftesbury House that offer short term accommodation for up to six weeks to adults with health and/or care needs under the badge of the '˜short stay project'.

These properties are part of the borough’s enabling service and offer temporary accommodation to some of our most vulnerable customers across Rotherham. The aim is to avoid admission into care or health services wherever possible and to get people home from hospital quicker if they are well enough to be discharged but just need a little extra help.

The full service officially launches today, following the completion of all of the accommodation and three customers have already benefitted from short stays in the first couple of apartments that were completed in early autumn.

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Rotherham Council’s cabinet member for housing, Councillor Dominic Beck, said: “This is a great example of successful joint working between our adult care and housing services. Developing our specialist housing offer like this is one of our key priorities over coming years and we are delighted to hit the ground running with our new provision at Shaftesbury House.”

Councillor David Roche, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Health, added: “This project is a clear example of how we are supporting our customers to remain independent. This modernised approach should help to reduce hospital admissions and length of time spent on wards. The purpose is not to provide long term accommodation but rather to give customers the confidence that independent living is still possible. This project fits in well with our principles of providing choice, independence and prevention and is part of a number of strategies being progressed related to specialist housing including an older persons’ housing strategy.”

Referrals for the short stay project are made through social workers in the single point of access team.