Specialist nurses support community carers as they help loved ones receive the best care and support while remaining in their own homes.

Community personnel enable home care with a backup team of nurses on hand if the unforeseen happens. Brian Egan, Managing Director of Bluebird Care (Carlow/Kilkenny and Waterford and Tipperary/East Cork) believes the tier of nursing staff to support community carers also ensures that services delivered — whether complex individual care or basic support — remain safe and timely. Pointing to the value of the nurse-led care system his organisation delivers, he says it is an important component of how community care has evolved in Ireland over the past decade.

Nurse-led care system

Egan says: “We believe that with the right risk assessment, care plan and suitably-trained staff, anybody can stay at home, whatever their needs.” Nurses conduct the risk assessments and deliver more complex care, with community carers meeting needs that allow older people to stay in their own homes.

Bluebird Care nurse managers liaise with HSE (Health Service Executive) Community Nursing teams and hospital discharge teams while providing a high level of support to community carers. “It is a bigger investment to have a team of nurses, but it gives reassurance to families and carers,” he continues. “Home is where people thrive and want to be, but that choice has not always been there.”

Home is where people thrive
and want to be, but that choice
has not always been there.

HSE partnership: choice of home care

Home care has become an essential aspect of community care in Ireland. Your loved ones deserve the option to either remain at home or transition to a nursing home when facing care needs.

Working under the HSE framework means teams deliver care efficiently and give people the choice to stay at home, he says. Emphasising the HSE partnership with Bluebird Care, he says a Statutory Support Scheme will further underpin that choice, particularly with formal regulation of home care services pending.

Meaningful home care delivery

Home care can make a meaningful impact on people’s lives. For example, a woman who feared falling while washing and dressing regained confidence with a few care visits per week, easing her own and her family’s concerns. In another case, a man with locked-in syndrome and significant care needs received a home care package, allowing him to live at home with his family instead of in hospital.

A strength of Bluebird Care is having a strong office, admin and support team to maintain continuity of service. Egan says: “We are unique because we are a nurse-led team with clinical managers locally, which gives extra reassurance to our clients and those we work with in the HSE. Another key focus for Bluebird Care is to ensure carers feel they are working for a good employer that supports them on an ongoing basis.”

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Creating person-centred care plans is a core tenet to effectively delivering bespoke care to people in their home environment.

Ensuring people get the right care to enable them to stay in their home environment sits at the heart of services provided by home care specialists at Bluebird Care Ireland. With fully qualified care assistants and nurses, it offers the ‘complete repertoire’ of support, from complex to paediatric care, as well as basic help for older people across Ireland. 

Personalised, nurse-led home care

Philomena Donnelly is Head of Marketing for Bluebird Care in Ireland. Acknowledging that her introduction to the organisation came because of family circumstances and the need for in-home care support, she says: “Giving our loved ones the choice, to receive the highest standards of care within their own home environment, lies at the very heart of the incredible healthcare services provided by Bluebird Care Ireland. Our incredible healthcare teams are passionate about delivering bespoke care, designed to suit the very needs of each of our families and their loved ones.”

It is about making sure that you
get the care that is right for you
within the environment you are in.

The difference Bluebird Care teams are making across Ireland 

Philomena states: “For 30 years, I have worked across iconic brands nationwide, and I am now delighted to support the enormous contribution that the Bluebird Care team continues to make across Ireland. Every family and community in Ireland has been touched by the need of expert care for a loved one. For me, I was really taken with the fact that Bluebird Care offers families the choice to receive that care within their own homes. The whole premise is built upon the fact that every individual and home is a unique environment, and expert care should always reflect that.” 

Bluebird Care tailors care around an individual’s unique needs, with circumstances and risk assessments and a bespoke care plan that puts people in control of their care to enable them to remain at home. “It is about making sure that you and your loved ones receive the expert care that is customised within the environment you are in,” she adds. 

“Having had the pleasure of meeting a vast range of the Bluebird Care various teams and network, I am enthused by their absolute dedication to the provision of that expert care. This is a person-centred, customer-focused team, making real differences across communities in Ireland. For me, it is an honour to contribute towards that legacy. For us all at Bluebird Care, we understand that ‘It’s good to be home’.” 

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New job opportunities are opening up across the spectrum as community caring services evolve across Ireland.

Creating a supportive network for carers is crucial in ensuring personnel can deliver the best care to families in the community. While an important aspect of that is selecting people with the right aptitude and skills, offering training and additional support to underpin that is invaluable.

Rewarding and challenging roles

Bluebird Care delivers care to families and communities across southern Ireland, ranging from meeting complex medical needs to offering to support people with fundamental care tasks like personal care, dressing or assistance in taking medication.

Daniel Gizara, People Business Partner, providing HR support to the franchise network, highlights the education and qualifications that potential recruits would require. “We want people to have a genuine passion for the care of others,” he says. “They need compassion and the ability to listen, and build a good relationship (rapport) with clients.; and patience is an important trait.”

The preference is for applicants to have QQI (Quality and Qualifications Ireland) level 5 in healthcare, with care skills and care of the older person being two important modules. However, if people do not have that, there are opportunities for applicants to train and achieve the skills. “The first thing to know is this challenging role can be highly rewarding,” he adds.

The first thing to know is that it is a
very rewarding but challenging role.

Job opportunities available

Bluebird Care highlights job opportunities on the career section of its website but also posts vacancies on other sites, via social media and online job fairs, office open days and careers events. Personnel are recruited from across the age spectrum from school-leavers inspired to pursue a caring career to career-changers and from different backgrounds.

He says: “Bluebird Care prides itself on being a premium care provider, but this also extends towards the care and support given to our team of Carers” Competitive pay rates, travelling expenses, training opportunities, loyalty bonuses and a broader – often tailored – employee assistance scheme are included. A formal 20-hour induction programme is followed by eight hours shadowing of more experienced personnel. “If people are interested in a rewarding career as a carer, we’re keen to hear from them,” says Gizara.

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Modern-day healthcare continues to focus on person-centred and individualised care, and the homecare sector, which has seen significant growth in recent years, is no exception.

Maebh Doran, National Clinical Governance and Quality Manager of Bluebird Care, discusses how an individualised approach is applied within home-based care services: “Every individual has unique needs. Home care services are adapting to offer tailored solutions that empower people to remain in their own homes while receiving the support they require. Our goal is simple: to support people to live independently and with dignity in the place they call home.”

Experience-driven home care standards

With over 30 years of experience in nursing and a personal family experience of home care, Maebh is striving for premium home care delivery. “I have witnessed firsthand the difference between a good, and a suboptimal experience — one that provides comfort and dignity and one that falls short,” she says. “Caring for someone in their home creates a unique and deeply personal relationship. There is vulnerability in the situation — for the person receiving care, their loved ones and the staff coming to the home.”

Using her own experiences to drive excellence within the home care sector, she is passionate about ensuring staff are trained to the highest standards, embedding professionalism, quality and high expectations into the organisation’s culture.

We are building momentum to align with
the government’s goal and vision to support
a person to maintain quality of life as long
as possible within their own home.

High-standard, customised home healthcare

With four key pillars of care — home care, enhanced care, complex care and disability support — all aspects can be tailored and adapted to the needs and preferences of each individual, creating bespoke home care solutions. “Our highly trained teams can assess and manage changes in a person’s baseline condition, make informed clinical decisions and escalate care appropriately to ensure their ongoing health and safety is a priority,” explains Doran.

Sláintecare, Ireland’s national 10-year healthcare reform plan, was designed to ensure accessible, quality, healthcare offerings that promote health and wellbeing. Bluebird is aligning its strategy with this government initiative and welcomes the Health Information and Quality Authority (HIQA) oversight and regulatory standards as a way to enhance care standards. “We are building momentum to align with the government’s goal and vision to support a person to maintain quality of life as long as possible within their own home,” explains Doran.

How to access tailored home care services

Accessing Bluebird Care services typically comes through healthcare professional referral, including GPs, primary care teams, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. From a wide range of healthcare settings, they allow people to receive timely, expert care in the comfort of their own homes.

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Providers of in-home care need to take a personalised approach to the services they offer, with detailed and tailored care plans that meet their customers’ specific needs.

Many people who need care say they would prefer it to be delivered in their own homes, rather than a care home. “Which is completely understandable,” says Jonathan Gardner, CEO of Bluebird Care.

Personalised, attentive in-home care

“People want to be cared for in the comfort of their own home, surrounded by the things most familiar to them,” says Gardner. The challenge we face, he explains, is a tendency for in-home care services to be rather ‘cookie-cutter,’ which means the focus is on delivering tasks rather than person-centred outcomes unique to the individual who needs the care.

“What’s needed, and what is different about Bluebird Care is that we spend a lot of time talking to our customers and their families to create constantly reviewed care plans that are tailored to a person’s specific needs,” explains Gardner. “Small details can make a big difference. For example, for someone living with dementia, it can be important to cut their sandwich in the way they are familiar with.”

That may sound trivial — but it really isn’t. “It can be the difference between them eating and not eating,” he says. “All our highly trained colleagues will have an intimate understanding of each person’s plan in order to deliver the best care for them at home. They want to help customers live fulfilling lives — and they don’t want to be rushed. In fact, we work closely with Health Service Executive Ireland (HSE Ireland) to scale visits up, if and when this becomes necessary.” In some instances, live-in care is available.

People want to be cared for in
the comfort of their own home,
surrounded by the things
most familiar to them.

Nurse-led care ensures clinical professionalism

At Bluebird Care, which has offices covering the whole of the country, care is nurse-led. “Each office features a Clinical Nurse Manager who has clinical oversight of the care we provide,” says Gardner. “This brings clinical professionalism and the very best standards to the business and ensures we can move from offering supportive in-home care — such as helping people with eating, washing and bathing — into more complex care such as medicine management, catheter management and end-of-life care.”

Using the latest app technology makes it easy for carers to share notes about the care they have provided with colleagues and family members.

Choosing the right healthcare provider

Deciding on a care provider is an important moment for any family. “They’ll want to know that the provider is consistent and reliable, with healthcare assistants and nurses who are carefully checked and supervised, highly professional and dedicated,” says Gardner. “Because, ultimately, care isn’t just ‘a service.’ It should be about helping to change a loved one’s life for the better.”

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