Questions
Deciding about whether you want care and support can be daunting. We have pulled together some questions we have found online from people arranging their own care and support, in the hopes that it helps to answer some of your questions.
What services do you provide?
We provide a wide range of services to support you at home. These services include support with washing and dressing, toileting, meal and drink preparation, support with medication, and light cleaning and housework.
We also provide services to help you out and about. This includes companionship, help with shopping, support with getting to appointments, and more besides.
If there is a service you’re looking for that we haven’t mentioned, feel free to get in touch and we can discuss further.
To find out more about our services, why not go to our page about care that’s unique to you?
Where do you cover?
We cover the town of Newton Abbot and its surrounds. This includes Abbotskerswell, Denbury, Ipplepen, Kingskerswell, Kingsteignton, Ogwell, and Teigngrace.
How do you make sure you recruit the right staff?
We know the importance of being supported by the right people. That’s why we operate a rigorous application process, to make sure we recruit the right staff.
‘What does person-centred care mean to you?’ is the very first question we ask on our application form. Applicants are required to give us 4 references, and they must attend an interview with our two directors.
For us, the most important quality we look for in applicants is their enthusiasm and passion for providing great care. We provide training on the theory and practical parts of care, but we cannot train people to have the emotional intelligence, compassion, and attitude needed – that must come from them.
What training do your staff do?
We deliver our training in-house, so that we can get to know our staff’s individual learning styles and tailor the content to the needs of the people we support. We also provide them with access to further online training if they wish to learn more about a particular interest, and compliment the training we provide in-house.
Some of the subjects we provide include equality & diversity, person-centred care, moving and positioning, safe handling of medication, safeguarding adults & children, and data protection & confidentiality, plus many others. We’re always looking for ideas for new subjects, and involve our staff in this process. For example, we’re considering developing a session on British Sign Language for any of our staff who want to learn the basics.
What conditions do you support people with?
We support people with a number of conditions, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, motor neurone disease, acquired brain injuries, and more.
Do you support people at the end of life?
Yes, we do. We know that the end of life can be full of emotions for all involved, so we work with you to plan ahead, and provide the best support we can to you and those important to you.
We work with a number of other organisations to provide ‘joined-up’ care. One of our staff is training to be an End of Life Care Ambassador with Rowcroft Hospice, and we have a representative on the National Palliative Care and Homelessness Network.
Do you offer regular visit times, or do you use 2-hour windows?
Whilst we tend to give you a window of time when you contact us, it is a 15-minute window. That means that we may book in your visit at 09:00 one day, but may move it to 09:10 the following day if we need to give our staff a little bit more travel time to get to you.
We assess this on a case-by-case basis, so if you have any time-critical needs that might be affected by our 15-minute window, please let us know when contacting us.
Additionally, we have a 30-minute window either side of your visit in case of situations like heavy traffic etc (though if our carer tells us they’re running late by 10 minutes or more, we’ll call you to discuss). Whilst this doesn’t happen too often, there have been occasions where incidents on the roads have led to traffic delays. We use a traffic tracker to monitor conditions on the roads where we can.
In our most recent feedback review, 100% of people we support strongly agreed that their care and support is delivered at regular times throughout the week, by a team of carers who know them and how they like things to be done.