Home Care in the Barbican

Yes, we send carers to Barbican flats. They travel in from our Lewisham office by train or DLR and arrive on foot from Barbican, Moorgate or St Paul's. TfL's planner gives roughly 46 to 49 minutes from our door to the Barbican Centre at 8am on a weekday. Which visit times we can cover depends on which carers are free, and we confirm that after seeing the flat.

Over 2,060 flats on a podium

The Corporation's own history of the estate counts more than 2,060 flats and over 4,000 residents across 19 named blocks, from Andrewes House and Defoe House to the three towers, Cromwell, Shakespeare and Lauderdale. The homes were built between 1969 and 1976 on a raised podium, and the whole estate has been Grade II listed since September 2001. People reach their front doors along highwalks and through block lobbies, not from the street.

For a carer, this means the route to the door is part of the job. A care plan for a Barbican flat says which entrance to use, which lift serves the flat, and how the carer gets in if the person cannot reach the door. In a tower flat the day often runs on one level. In a terrace-block maisonette, the bathroom can be up a flight of internal stairs, and that changes everything about a morning visit once the stairs become risky.

Before anyone drills: Landlord's Approval and the listing

Most Barbican homes are leasehold, and the Corporation is the freeholder. Its home improvements page says alterations need an application for Landlord's Approval, sent to your House Officer, and some may also need listed building consent. The estate has published listed building management guidelines setting out what is likely and unlikely to be approved. If work has already been done without approval, the page says to apply retrospectively.

In practice, ask before fitting grab rails, a key safe by the front door, a stairlift on a maisonette stair or a level-access shower. Freestanding equipment, such as a perching stool, a raised toilet seat or a bed lever, usually needs no permission at all, and the Corporation's occupational therapy service can assess for it. We often start with what can be moved, not what has to be fixed.

Family visiting by car, and Blue Badges

Our carers do not drive in, but relatives often do. The estate car parks have a 24-hour concierge, and every Barbican property gets five hours of free visitor parking; after that, stays are charged and paid through RingGo using the car park's location number, according to the Corporation's estate parking page. The concierges can give you a card with that number on it.

Street parking for disabled drivers works differently here, because the City opts out of much of the national Blue Badge scheme. Its marked disabled bays are free with badge and clock on display: four hours on weekdays, but six hours in the bays around St Bartholomew's Hospital, and no limit at weekends. They cannot park on yellow lines. Disabled residents can also apply for the City's own Red Badge. The rules are on the Corporation's disabled badge holders page.

Back from hospital to a Barbican flat

Discharges to the estate come mostly from Barts, the Royal London, the Homerton or UCLH. The questions we ask are specific to the building: can the person manage the walk from the lift to the flat, is the bed on the same level as the bathroom, and who has a key? If the answer to the second is no, the bed sometimes comes down to the living floor for a few weeks. The Corporation may also offer its free reablement for up to six weeks, and our visits can sit alongside it or follow on. Tell us the likely discharge date while the person is still on the ward. Our hospital discharge support page explains how we work.

Two neighbours make follow-up easier. The Neaman Practice, the City's only GP surgery, is in Half Moon Court just south-west of the estate, so a carer can fit a prescription collection into a visit. Homerton's district nurses visit housebound patients here until 10pm each day, and our carers leave notes the nurses can read.

Keeping a Barbican life going

The point of care at home here is usually to keep someone in the life they chose: concerts and films at the Barbican Centre, the library or the conservatory. A companionship visit can include getting there and back, and our personal care visits can be timed so the person is washed, dressed and ready first. Age UK City of London, an independent local charity for people 55 and over, runs weekly digital help surgeries in the Barbican, and a carer can sit with someone who finds a phone or tablet stressful.

Who pays for home care on the estate?

Barbican residents come under the City of London Corporation. Its Adult Social Care Team carries out the free needs assessment, and a financial assessment decides whether the Corporation contributes. The details, including direct payments, are on our City of London home care page. Paying privately is the other route, and we quote in writing after seeing the flat. If needs are mainly health needs, ask the GP or the ward about NHS Continuing Healthcare.

When visits are no longer enough, see live-in care in the Barbican. For a husband, wife or son doing most of the caring, respite care gives them time back.

Everything our carers can help with →