Care & Repair Cymru have won the 2024 GSK IMPACT Awards for their work helping vulnerable older people and people with disabilities to live independently in their own homes.
Now in its 27th year, the GSK IMPACT Awards are a mark of excellence in the voluntary sector, designed to recognise the outstanding work of small and medium-sized charities working to improve people’s health and wellbeing in the UK.
As an award winner, Care & Repair Cymru will now receive £40,000 in unrestricted funding as well as expert support and leadership development provided by leading health and care charity, The King’s Fund.
HEALTHIER, HAPPIER HOMES
Part of Care & Repair Cymru’s work is supporting hospital discharge and preventing admission to hospital by improving and adapting the homes of those at risk. Their services are holistic, person-centred and tailored to individual needs.
Their work is an important part of keeping the country’s older population healthy and in their own homes – a third of excess winter deaths among older people are attributed to respiratory illness from living in cold homes.
Care & Repair agencies across Wales offer a free service which enables people living with dementia, sensory loss or those who’ve had a stroke to obtain a home check from a specially trained caseworker.
They give advice on a range of things like benefit entitlements and how to avoid risks such as falls, as well as information on what other services are available to them.
ACCLAIM FOR CARE & REPAIR
The award judges particularly commended Care & Repair for their Hospital to a Healthier Home programme, which works to make sure elderly patients can be discharged as quickly as possible from hospitals back into suitable, safe accommodation.
Katie Pinnock, Director, UK Charitable Partnerships at GSK, said:
‘Care & Repair Cymru champions the housing needs of older people, and provides independence to those who want to stay in their own homes.
‘The programmes delivered by the charity and its agencies, such as Hospital to a Healthier Home and Managing Better, are effective innovations that also help to reduce the demand on overstretched NHS and social care services by supporting some of Wales’s most vulnerable people to live well in their own homes.’
MORE ABOUT THE GSK IMPACT AWARDS
The GSK IMPACT Awards programme has now been running for 27 years, since the awards began in 1997, and more than 530 health and wellbeing charities have received a GSK IMPACT Award and funding totalling over £8.1 million.
You can find out more about the awards, including the list of 2024 winners, at www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/projects/gsk/impact-awards.