FAQ

Our homecare services help vulnerable adults in Tower Hamlets live independently, stay connected, and achieve their personal goals at home. By prioritising local employment and ensuring all care staff receive at least the London Living Wage, our services align with our commitment to boosting jobs, business, and public services.

Homecare is provided across four localities - Northwest, Southwest, Northeast, and Southeast - supporting over 2,200 residents through trusted providers. This locality-based approach fosters strong partnerships and community-focused care and aligns with how adult social care teams are structured, and the NHS.

To enhance care quality and sustainability, we are strengthening our framework by focusing on:

• Capacity and expertise – ensuring providers can manage demand and deliver high-quality care.
• Quality standards – partnering with CQC-rated "Good" providers who meet strict regulatory standards.
• Safeguarding measures – ensuring robust policies protect vulnerable residents.

By expanding provider diversity and reducing spot purchasing costs, we want to improve the quality of care, increase resilience, and better support our community.

Tower Hamlets is a diverse and rapidly growing borough with a population that is living longer but also facing significant health and social care challenges. High levels of deprivation, housing pressures, and health inequalities mean that demand for adult social care is increasing, particularly among older people, those with long-term conditions, and individuals with complex needs. The borough also has a young and highly mobile population, creating a dynamic and evolving care landscape.

The council works closely with the NHS, voluntary and community organisations, and independent providers to deliver high-quality, person-centred care. There is a strong focus on integration and collaboration, ensuring that health and social care services work seamlessly together to provide the right support at the right time. This includes ongoing efforts to develop Integrated Neighbourhood Teams, strengthen preventative services, and enable people to remain independent for longer.

Despite financial pressures and workforce challenges, Tower Hamlets is committed to building a sustainable and innovative care system. The borough is embracing digital transformation, new models of care, and strength-based approaches to improve outcomes for residents. Providers are encouraged to work in partnership to develop flexible, inclusive, and culturally responsive services that reflect the needs of Tower Hamlets’ diverse communities.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) forecasts a 57 per cent increase in demand for home care services for adults aged 65 and over by 2038, compared to 2018.

In London, there are approximately 1,060 home care agencies, ranging from small providers with a handful of service users to large organisations serving thousands. As demand continues to grow, ensuring high-quality, accessible care remains a priority.

You can search for a home care agency on the Care Sourcer website.

Extra care housing offers high-quality, specialist housing with tailored support to promote independence. Designed to be flexible, these schemes adapt to residents’ changing needs and help reduce isolation by keeping individuals connected to their communities.

Currently, Tower Hamlets has six extra care schemes providing 214 units across the borough.

In Tower Hamlets we work together with service users to develop and deliver the range of support and interventions that can help adults with a learning disability live well.

The council is working with its partners on the Learning Disability Partnership Board to refresh its five-year Learning Disability Strategy, which we hope to publish in early autumn. This will detail how we intend to deliver against the priorities most important to us.

Our priorities

In advance of its completion, adults with a learning disability and their carers have identified six key outcomes and partnership actions most important to them which we expect to see embedded and delivered across all our commissioned services:

• Be happy and healthy.
• Live locally.
• Be part of the community and be involved in activities.
• Work or volunteer.
• Have choice and the right support.
• Be respected and safe.

Our services

Supported accommodation

Along with our extra care housing, accessed by everyone with an assessed level of need, we currently commission 52 supported accommodation units across a range of different settings. Our accommodation includes:

• Self-contained one-bedroom flats with ensuite bedrooms.
• Shared houses (three–five bedrooms) with 24-hour support, helping to prevent loneliness and isolation while promoting community living.

This level of provision does not reflect demand which means many individuals are placed outside of the borough. To address this, we are focused on working with individuals and their families to increase the availability of high-quality supported opportunities within borough boundaries over the next five-year period.

Residential respite:

Residential short-break respite support is available at our newly refurbished Hotel in the Park respite service. Following an assessment by our Community Learning Disability Team, individuals and their carers can access overnight, long weekends or longer breaks when booked in advance.  The service is also available at short notice to support families in a crisis.  Please contact LDDuty@towerhamlets.gov.uk for further information.