Carers step up efforts to help city’s homeless in response to pandemic

ROUGH SLEEPERS in Leeds are being cared for by a team of healthcare professionals who have stepped up their work to look after the city’s most vulnerable people as the Covid- 19 pandemic continues.

Bevan Healthcare’s York Street

Health Practice is the hub for the small team who bring healthcare to vulnerable people across the city.

GPs, a paramedic, two registered nurses and an occupational therapist are caring for rough sleepers and people in temporary accommodation who are homeless or seeking asylum.

Throughout Covid they have increased outreach work to ensure the safety of patients, many with complex mental and health and physical problems.

The team helped track down many of the rough sleepers in Leeds at the start of the pandemic before placing them in emergency accommodation including hostels and hotels. The team has dealt with 282 homeless people with almost 900 face to face consultations since the first lockdown in March.

Bevan Healthcare, which works alongside partners Leeds Clinical Commissioning Group and Leeds City Council, practises what it calls inclusion health to focus on the most vulnerable members of society.

It tries to address their needs in a holistic way by taking account of mental health and social factors rather than just dealing with obvious physical illnesses.

York Street Healthcare nurse consultant Mat Sidebottom is leading its healthcare Covid response for the city’s homeless and asylum seekers. He said Covid has given his team a unique opportunity to treat many homeless people for a sustained period. He said: “For many organisations Covid has hindered their operations, but it has given us a fantastic opportunity to engage with people like never before.”