1 – How to arrange home care – first call for an initial chat
How to arrange home care with Gardiner’s. Whether you need to arrange care in a hurry, or are making the first steps toward asking for help, arranging care can be stressful. It is common to feel lost and unsure of which way to turn. Make Gardiner’s your first call.
We have huge amounts of experience with helping people to navigate how to arrange home care. We know how to successfully arrange care. Our amazing team are driven to make sure that our clients are happy and feel safe and comfortable in their own homes. Most of our enquiries come from word-of-mouth recommendations. A great many people in the local community will have some experience with the care sector, and speaking to them will really help you to learn which services to trust.
When you call Gardiner’s to arrange care, an experienced member of our team will listen to you. They will take the time to talk to you and find out about your situation. We will help you to think about the relevant issues which will lead to the right solution for your situation. We seek to build your confidence in our service by explaining some of the important factors that make our service work. For example, small teams of regular care workers and dedicated Care Managers.
At the end of our chat, we will send you information about our service, including our charges and terms. We’d love to arrange a time to visit you and continue our conversation in person if that would be helpful – or we can offer an online video meeting.
Once you are confident that you would like Gardiner’s to support your loved one to arrange care, just let us know. We will arrange a time with you for our initial Home visit and assessment. We will also check our capacity to support your request and ask for you to sign our terms.
2 – Home visit and assessment
At the initial Home visit and assessment, we explore the client’s support needs and their preferences in how their needs are met. If they are comfortable doing so, we ask clients to share what is important to them, this might be loved ones, hobbies and interests or key life events. We also seek an understanding of daily routine and health issues. We work with clients to schedule our visit so that everyone who needs to be there is present. Together we prepare a care plan that enables our team to support matching your requirements.
During the meeting, we will make sure that you understand how our service works, as well as who you can contact to ask questions or request a change. We talk to you about the smart online care management system that we use and how you can access this to see the care plan, records of the care provided and details of upcoming bookings.
Finally, we will also confirm the visits to be provided and agree the start date.
3 – Your care team
The next stage is selecting your care team. Welcoming someone new into your home to provide you with support is a daunting prospect. We are confident that the team will be warm and friendly and that you will soon get to know and build trust in them.
At Gardiner’s, we really are lucky to have such a fantastic group of people in our team. Each and every one of them believe in what we do and are driven to make a difference to the lives of those they support. We all understand just how important the relationship between client and care worker can become. By getting to know our clients, we can match them to Care Workers we think that they will like and get on well with.
Ahead of each visit, we will let you know which of our team will be visiting and tell you a bit about them so that you know what to expect. Our Care Workers have access to the care plan for the clients they are due to visit in advance, this means that they can prepare for their first visit to each client and create a great first impression.
4 – Managing your care
Every Gardiner’s client has a dedicated Care Manager who is responsible for their care and making sure everything runs smoothly. They will help to prepare and maintain the client’s care plan, keeping in regular contact. If ever there is a change in circumstances, or perhaps there is a change you want to make to your care plan, a request you would like to make or some feedback that you would like to give, then the Care Manager is the person that you should speak with. You may first meet your Care Manager at the initial Home visit and assessment. If not, they will certainly be in contact by phone shortly afterwards and will soon arrange a visit to meet you and check that you are happy with how everything is going.
Each of the Care Managers is supported by our experienced office management team. This means that even if the Care Manager is away from work, there will always be someone else available to help. We also operate an out-of-hours on-call service should there be any urgent issues that need to be discussed concerning clients.
Each new client will quickly have a small and consistent team of friendly faces. We achieve this by our planning process which seeks to book the same small group of Care Workers to attend regularly. This core team will focus on getting to know the client well and building a strong relationship with them. We seek feedback from clients and encourage them to let us know which of the carers that have visited them they particularly like and get on well with.
All clients can have access to our secure online care system PPOC. they can also ask us to grant access to other people that they specify. PPOC allows users details of the duties booked for up to 28 days ahead. This means that you will always know who to expect. If there needs to be a slight change to the time of our visit or to the carer that you are expecting, we will keep you informed about these changes. PPOC also allows you to read the care plan and care records from recent visits.
Your Care Manager will regularly visit in order to review the care that we are providing to ensure that you are happy with the care our team are providing and that any changes you would like to make are actioned. Our senior care workers will also occasionally request permission to visit, usually this will be in order to observe a Care Worker’s practice and ensure that they are meeting our high standard of support.
5 – Supporting the whole family to manage care
At Gardiner’s, our role isn’t just to support the client. We want to work closely with the client and their family to gain their confidence and to give peace of mind. Enabling people to remain in their own homes as long as possible is not easy, but we are here to help facilitate this with our knowledge, experience and support.
Please do call to have a chat and discuss how to arrange home care with Gardiner’s – our contact details
Gardner’s Homecare are proud members of the Homecare Association, you may find this article on Choosing Care at home helpful.