Are you considering seeking at-home care support or advice? Do you want to hear directly from someone who understands the process and can help you along the way? The host of our Family Carer Podcast, Melanie Cohen, takes the time to sit down with Betty Parra, Manager at Bluebird Care Bournemouth & Poole, to discuss the onboarding process.
This article breaks down their discussion so you can find the resources you need to get started. Read through it today or listen in to hear directly from someone who knows the ins and outs.
For personalised advice, contact our team at Bluebird Care today.
Demystifying the Process
In this episode of our Family Carer Podcast, Melanie and Betty discuss how to organise domiciliary care. With so many options, seeking support can seem almost too complicated to pursue. Here, Betty breaks down the process of getting support into a few key steps we’ve listed out below.
Contacting Bluebird Care
Betty starts by acknowledging the initial journey families go through. Whether their loved one has recently gone through surgery or experienced an accident, realising your loved one needs care can be overwhelming.
Coming to that realisation is key, but contacting Bluebird Care or another service is the first step to getting the support you need. At Bluebird Care, they strive to build relationships with you and your loved one. The best way to receive the right care is by working together.
Betty elaborates, ‘What we like doing first is listening to that person, getting to know them a little bit better from that initial phone call so we can help them in the best way possible. So during that phone call, it would only be about whatever they want to share at that point with us.’
This can be organised either by phone call or with an informal face-to-face chat.
Assessing Your Loved One’s Needs
The next step is assessing your or your loved one’s needs. This is usually conducted through an informal meeting to help customers feel comfortable moving forward and get to know the service.
During this chat, we assess what kind of care is needed, taking into account personal preferences and routines, which are then used to create a detailed care plan. If care is needed urgently, the team strives to be flexible, complete assessments, and put care in place on the same day or within a couple of days.
She goes on, ‘So we have done assessments on that same day because they are in a very critical point where they have no one else and they need urgent care. So we do the assessments , sometimes that same day. We work on the care plan that same afternoon, that same evening if it's necessary sometimes. And we even put the care package in place in one, two days max. So it really depends on what that person needs.’
At this stage, having the family involved can be integral. They often know their loved ones better than anyone else and can provide valuable information and ask important questions.
Building Your Care Plan
A meeting is then conducted to ask your family several different questions to try and ascertain your loved one’s unique needs. This is to build a comprehensive care plan that expert carers, medical teams and families can rely on.
The care plan outlines all aspects of care, including personal care routines, nutritional needs, mobility, and other health-related requirements. This in-depth plan ensures expert carers know the customer's preferences in detail. The plan is even accessible to family members through an app, allowing them to stay informed and involved, even from afar.
While being asked so many questions can be stressful, it is in no way any kind of measurement or assessment of you and your family. Betty elaborates that, ‘people can be reassured it's not a test of any sort. … No, we try to do it very, very informally. Just like having a chat with that person.
Really getting to know that person. Because all the information that I gather in that meeting or face-to-face assessment … is the information that I will use to create the care plan. To write everything, very detailed, because this is the information that the carers will get to see.’
This plan is then shared with other relevant people. This can include other care providers, GPs, nurses and OTs. These plans are the best way to keep your family up-to-date and ensure your loved one is receiving constant, comprehensive care.
Assigning Your Team
Once the care plan is finalised, Bluebird Care assigns a core team of care assistants based on the customer’s needs and preferences. The customer support supervisor also conducts the first visit to ensure everything is running smoothly, and changes can be made to the care plan if necessary.
Betty emphasises that Bluebird Care aims to make the whole process as smooth, flexible, and supportive as possible, with a focus on the customer's needs.
‘So we decide maybe five care assistants that will be visiting that person. And we keep this in mind always, and we follow the customer's preferences. So some customers would only accept female carers, so we would only send female carers.’
From Start to Finish
Melanie and Betty discuss how beginning domiciliary care should be both supportive and flexible. Rather than picking up the phone and committing to one course of action, you should be able to explore the best options.
This approach helps families, especially during times of crisis, understand the types of care available. Whether they need short-term support or ongoing assistance, the right team will be there every step of the way.
Betty emphasises, ‘Our main goal is to help people. That's what we do. What we do is not to bring customers to our organisation. It's not that. The whole point here is to help customers, to help people in general.’ Whether that be finding other resources or starting the onboarding process, Bluebird Care aims to be there.
Bluebird Care Bournemouth and Poole is Here to Help You Get The Support You Need
Communication and transparency are the key elements that ensure a care service meets your needs. If you want to learn more about available care options or would like to begin onboarding with Bluebird Care, don’t hesitate to call our team today.
We are passionate about putting people first and tailoring services to their needs and preferences. While seeking support can be overwhelming, we are here to help guide you through every step of the process.
If you would like to explore our podcasts or listen in to Betty yourself, you can tune in today.
