Our customers are at the heart of everything we do, so who better to speak to when it comes to improvements we can make to our services?
Listening to customer feedback not only helps us to make sure we’re delivering great services, but it also gives customers the opportunity to have their say on what’s important to them.
That’s why we regularly consult with customers about how and why we do things here at Abri, and this includes our policies and procedures.
This meant we recently worked with customers to review our approach to Aids and Adaptations.
Through recent partnerships, we saw a big difference in approach and the need to define and bring about a policy to ensure how we approach and support customers was clear.
To help us get this right, we invited our customer group to a workshop and had initial interest from 40 customers, with 11 attending on the evening itself.
The workshop was held via Microsoft Teams, led by Jim Bruckel, Regional Assistant Director and Alison Rixon, Head of Property Care.
The 11 customers that attended all had a personal story and experience of home adaptations to share and the following key themes were picked up:
- Customers felt that we need to do more to promote adaptations both online and on paper to ensure inclusivity
- Customers shared that their experience was mixed between good and bad and more could be done to train colleagues in their approach to delivering aids and adaptations
- There were concerns shared about the state of the funding and support provided by Local Authorities and it would be good if Abri could do more - prompting a request to have a bigger budget in the future to support more Abri customers
- It was agreed that customers would support increasing the current legacy threshold of £1,500 (Inclusive of VAT) to a higher amount £2,000 (plus VAT).
- We should be building more properties to support disabled people on the waiting list and in existing Abri homes
- We could do more to promote adapted properties and support customers to downsize to more appropriate accommodation
- Finally, it was felt we could do more to empower colleagues to consider and identify adaptions when they are in our customers’ homes.
What next?
We’ve now developed an action plan to address some of the recommendations and concerns raised by customers. This includes making sure we have good communication and promotion of our aids and adaptations service, carry out training for colleagues to understand the challenges faced by disabled and older customers, as well as the support we provide, and to think ahead to the future needs of customers.
Jennifer Jarrett, Abri’s Occupational Therapist with a vast experience of working with disabled customers will be leading on delivering the action plan, working with teams to bring about change's customers want to see.
We’re also due to launch our new Adaptations Policy by December 2025 which will also reflect the points and recommendations raised by customers during the consultation.
Want to find out more about aids and adaptations?
You can find out more about aids and adaptations using the button below. You can also get in touch by contacting us on 0300 123 1 567 or via My Abri.