Home Care on the Golden Lane Estate

Yes, we provide visiting home care on the Golden Lane Estate, EC1Y. Our carers come from Lewisham by rail and walk in from Barbican station, about 320 metres from the estate office. TfL's planner puts the whole trip from our office to Golden Lane Community Centre at about 50 minutes on a weekday morning. Whether we can cover the exact times you need depends on carer availability, and we tell you straight after the assessment.

559 homes, most of them small

The estate was designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon and built between 1957 and 1962, mainly for single people and couples who worked in the City. Of the original 554 homes, 359 were studios or one-bedroom flats. Today there are 559: 385 flats and 174 maisonettes. Great Arthur House, the 16-storey tower at the centre, is all one-bedroom flats. Crescent House, on Goswell Road, is listed Grade II*, and the rest of the estate Grade II.

Golden Lane is also the City's own council estate. The Corporation is landlord to its tenants and freeholder to its leaseholders, as well as being the council that does care assessments. For a family that is useful: the housing officer and the social worker work for the same organisation.

Helping someone wash and dress in a studio

Small rooms change how personal care works. Often there is no space beside the bed for a carer to help someone sit up, swing their legs round and stand, so the first fix is moving a chest of drawers, not ordering equipment. A perching stool can make a narrow kitchen usable again. A bath board may be the difference between a weekly bath and a strip wash. In the maisonettes, the question is the internal stair, and whether the bed should come down to the entrance level for a while.

We go through this room by room at the first visit and write it into the care plan, so every carer who comes does it the same way. Tenants who need a fixed adaptation, such as rails or a shower in place of the bath, go through the Corporation as landlord. Leaseholders should ask the estate office before altering anything in a listed building. The office is in Great Arthur House, step-free, and closed between 1pm and 2pm.

The memory cafe on Tuesday afternoons

The Forget Me Not Memory Cafe meets every Tuesday from 2pm to 4pm at Golden Lane Community Centre, a short walk from the estate office. The Corporation lists the Forget Me Not Project 17 as the contact. The cafe welcomes anyone with memory problems, depression, a terminal illness or a disability who is feeling lonely or cut off, along with the people who care for them. For someone living with dementia in a one-bedroom flat, a regular two hours in company can be the best part of the week.

We can time a Tuesday visit so the carer helps the person get ready, walks them across, and either stays or comes back at four. If you need someone to stay with them at home instead, that is our sit-in service. A diagnosis itself comes through the GP and the City and Hackney Dementia Service, run by East London NHS Foundation Trust; the cafe is the everyday support around it. Our dementia care page explains how we work with memory loss.

Age UK, the leisure centre and other things on the doorstep

• Age UK City of London, a local charity separate from the national Age UK, runs activities for people 55 and over in the area, including one-to-one digital help on most Tuesday afternoons at Golden Lane Community Centre, and its Golden Social drop-in there on Mondays from 2:15pm to 4pm.
• Golden Lane Leisure Centre is on the estate itself, and residents pay preferential rates.
• Family carers can register with Imago, the Corporation's commissioned carers' service (0300 011 1965), which runs weekly drop-ins and carer groups.

Home from hospital to a small flat

The first week back is when a studio is hardest to manage: a walking frame takes up half the floor, and there may be nowhere to put a commode. Before discharge we ask the ward what equipment is coming and check it will fit. The Corporation's reablement team may visit for up to six weeks at no charge, working on getting the person independent again, and Homerton's district nurses can call daily until 10pm for wounds or injections if the ward refers. Our visits fill the gaps around both, for instance an evening call to help with undressing and a hot drink after the nurses have gone.

Getting there, and why carers don't drive

From Lewisham, a carer takes a Southeastern train to London Bridge and then Thameslink to Farringdon, or the Underground to Barbican or Old Street, and walks the last few minutes.

Parking is the weak point. The estate's only on-site disabled bay is allocated to a Great Arthur House resident. There are on-street disabled bays on Fann Street, on Golden Lane outside Stanley Cohen House and on Baltic Street West outside Hatfield House, but those are for Blue Badge holders. A visiting carer would have nowhere to leave a car, so ours come on foot.

Getting help from the Corporation on Golden Lane

Ask the City of London Corporation's Adult Social Care Team for a needs assessment on 020 7332 1224, and if you are the one doing the caring, ask for a carer's assessment in the same call. Our City of London home care page sets out the timescales, direct payments and the out-of-hours number. City Advice, run by Toynbee Hall, helps residents of City estates with benefits and council forms. If the person is paying privately, they can come straight to us, and we put the quote in writing after visiting.

Live-in care only works in the minority of homes with a second bedroom; live-in care on Golden Lane goes through which ones. For a regular afternoon off for a family carer, see respite care in the City.

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