When you, or a loved one, needs care and support at home, the prospect of strangers coming into your home can be daunting.
Obviously, you want anyone coming into your home to support you to be properly skilled and trustworthy; but most of us also want to feel comfortable with the person at an individual level.
And the continuity care relationship puts the person “at the centre of their care”.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety handed down their final report entitled ‘Care, Dignity and Respect’, which recognises the importance of relationship-based care and continuity of those relationships in driving better outcomes for older people.
“The ability of an older person to develop quality relationships with their carers is central to high quality care.” [Summary: p79].
“Older people get the best care from regular workers they know, who respect them and offer continuity of care as well as insights into their changing care needs and health requirements,” the Report says [Vol 1; p42].
With Mable, you actually choose your relationship-driven care and support. And the continuity of the relationship is a core value for Mable.com.au. It’s an online community where people who self-manage their Home Care Package can find and choose their own team of independent support workers.
We were interested to test this relationship principle in the light of the Royal Commission’s support for it in its final report.
So, we sat down for a chat with Norm, who’s using Mable to help find support for his wife.
For Norm – it’s all about chemistry
Norm said that finding the right support team, and retaining them, was especially important.
“But the main thing you look for is chemistry. Keep in mind, I’m leaving my wife for six or seven hours with someone. And if it’s not someone we’re comfortable with, I’m wasting my time,” he said.
Norm said that the functionality of the website was critical to finding the right people and said the ease of use was an attractive feature.
“You can basically say, ‘This is what I’m looking for,’ and you get a variety of people with a variety of skills. You can then arrange for an interview and they’ll come to your house,” he said.
Finding the right care and support workers – it’s personal
For Mable CEO and co-founder Peter Scutt, who launched the platform in 2014 after being unable to find care for his father under the traditional service model, this recognition that care and support should be relational, not transactional, is important.
“The continuity of relationship is a major reason older Australians transition from the traditional model to joining us in the Mable community,” he says.
“They are able to choose and engage their support worker directly, who are often people from their local community, and together they determine how they will work together.”
“For so many people it is a relief to be able to choose the people who come into their home rather than rely on rostered staff who have prescribed tasks and who are frequently changing,” he said.
We all want our dignity respected
We all want the best care and support options to be available when we need them and relationship-based care has been recognised by the Commissioners as essential.
“Caring, by its very nature, depends upon relationships between people. Caring relationships that leave older people feeling heard and seen and respected are essential to maintaining dignity.” [Summary: p 79]
“When we are genuinely at the centre, making the decisions that are best for us, we have the best chance of a good experience with the aged care system,” Peter Scutt said.
Mable now has over 11,000 support workers nationally.
To learn more about Self-Managing your Home Care Package, or to join Mable and start browsing the thousands of independent support workers across Australia, click here.
* NOTE: the quotes here are from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety, Final Report: Care, Dignity and Respect Volume 1 and Summary
