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What is personal care?
Personal care in the home is a very broad term used to describe a number of different areas of care and support a carer will provide, and includes:
Bathing and showering
Our carer will ensure that you are able to enjoy a much-loved bath again, with your chosen relaxing bath products or regularly take a shower, whilst providing you with the physical support and comfort you need.
Dressing and getting ready for bed
We appreciate that this routine task can become challenging as we get older, but with the discreet support and gentle encouragement from a personal assistant, means you no longer need to be as concerned about this each day.
Foot care
Our carer will ensure your nails and feet are tip top! They will monitor your needs to ensure your nails are well maintained, feet are cared for including providing relaxing pedicures and, if you are diabetic and need more specialist care, our professional carer will ensure a robust regime of quality foot care in partnership with local chiropodists.
Hair and beauty
We know how important it is for self-esteem for you to maintain your personal appearance. Our professional carer will ensure your hair is clean and styled to your personal preference, whilst arranging for visits from a home hairdresser or facilitating a trip to the hairdressers for treatments and cutting. Carers will support you to continue to wear your make up and enable you to shave, just as you always have.
Oral hygiene
Nothing is more important than oral hygiene as we get older to minimise infections and maintain healthy teeth and gums. Our carer will support you to maintain excellent daily oral hygiene, whilst facilitating regular visits to the dental practice or visits from the dentist at home.
Applying creams and lotions
Whether you need specialist creams applied regularly or simply like to have a daily refresh with a body cream to maintain skin moisture and reduce dryness, our carer will monitor and support your skin routine.
Assisting you with toileting
Our carers are trained to be sensitive and compassionate when supporting people to visit the toilet. If you wear continence pads, our carers will vigilantly monitor the changing of these, whilst providing gentle encouragement and support, ensuring a healthy routine is maintained to eliminate any possible infection and sores. If you need a bed pan or use a commode our carer is on hand to support your needs any time of the day.
Bed positioning
It is important if you always spend significant amounts of time in bed that you comfortable. Our carer will ensure you are moved frequently and are encouraged to undertake some mobility stretching as much as you are capable, all of which will prevent uncomfortable bed sores.
Clinical personal care
We offer nurse-led care for those requiring clinical interventions, like changing and maintaining a catheter or stoma bag. All of our carers are trained to support specialist personal care and we have in-house leading clinical experts who guide our approach and delivery of care, so you can be assured of the very highest quality of care, all provided with the utmost dignity and respect.
In addition to personal care for elderly, our carers are on hand to provide other care and support in your own home, including help with domestic tasks, monitoring and management of medications, compassionate companionship and meal planning and cooking – all the routines you have can be maintained with the support of a home carer.
Types of personal care
Our personal care for the elderly provided by an employed and trained professional carer can be offered as a live-in care service or as respite care. We will provide you with a well matched care team who will truly get to know you to understand your personal choices, preferences and desired routines.
Our carers will encourage you to remain as independent as you can, whilst providing the gentle encouragement and dignified support you need to keep on top of your personal care.
One of the most compelling benefits of receiving personal care in the comfort of your own home as opposed to a care home setting is that the care and support you receive will be provided by a carer on a one-to-one basis, not a number of different carers in a larger care team.
Given the sensitive nature of this type of care it affords you the reassurance that the same continuous care team will be there to support you who have really got to understand you and your needs.
Personal care for dementia
As dementia progresses, many people begin to have difficulties in maintaining their usual personal care routines. Due to the personal and intimate nature of activities like washing, bathing and toileting, some people living with dementia may feel self-conscious or embarrassed in asking family members for support.
At The Good Care Group, all our carers are expertly trained in how to care for someone living with dementia including how to provide discreet and sensitive personal care. Through the use of gentle encouragement and best dementia care practices, our carers can make your loved one feel at ease.
Our carer will encourage as much independence as possible with your loved one’s personal care whilst always maintaining their privacy and dignity. This can be as simple as giving your loved one space when it is needed or showing them how an activity is done. Our carers will never ‘take over’ but rather encourage your loved one to make choices for themselves, including what to wear and what personal care routines they would like to maintain.
We know receiving personal care in the comfort, safety and familiarity of your own home has far-reaching benefits in improving health and well-being for a person living with dementia. Learn more about our expert dementia care .
Why choose The Good Care Group?
We have been providing high quality, live-in care to families in England and Scotland for over 10 years. At the heart of our award-winning service is enabling people to live independently in their own home with an improved quality of life. Our approach to care at home means our clients can achieve improved health and well-being. For families they benefit from peace of mind and reassurance that their loved one is receiving the very best care and support.
A perfectly matched care team
A live-in care service usually involves two carers working a two-week rotation. They will be carefully matched working with you and your family. We make sure they are skilled and equipped to meet all your care and support needs. Our focus on matching means the chosen care team shares common interests and backgrounds. We know this means life is enjoyable for everyone. Your care team really gets to know you and your needs, which means you get the consistency of care.
Expertly trained carers
All our professional carers are required to complete our leading training programme before they care for our clients. Our programme has been created with leading charities and clinical experts. It goes beyond mandatory requirements in the care sector. Carers are then equipped to provide high-quality care and support for those living with specialist conditions. Our carers never stop learning new skills to further enhance the care they provide.
Continuity of care
Unlike an agency we employ our carers. This means they are committed to us, as we are to them. Carers enjoy the security of being employed, which means they stay with us longer. Those who work for agencies move around more. For families this means that you get continuity and consistency of the same care team caring for your loved one. This means high-quality care can be achieved with improved outcomes and no disruption to your loved one’s life.
In-house clinical experts
We have a dedicated team of in-house clinical experts. This includes a specialist consultant nurse, who also provides Admiral Nurse services to those living with dementia. Our management team consists of nursing professionals. They guide our carers to provide safe and effective nurse-led care at home. We also have our own in-house Occupational Therapist (OT) who works closely with healthcare professionals and our care teams. Our OT provides guidance and advice that enables people to live well in their own home with any equipment they may need. These experts lead, monitor and support our care teams to deliver best practice nurse-led care at home.
Innovative care technology
Unlike any other live-in care provider, we have our own online care community. Families, healthcare professionals and carers can access up to date information about the care being provided. It enables more effective monitoring, which means issues can be responded to efficiently. For our families it provides a reassuring window into the care their loved one is receiving. Our carers also use the online community to share ideas and support each other. It provides a vital connection which is important when remote working. Carers will use the online community so their clients can enjoy time online. This includes video calls with family, so they feel connected. Clients can use it to shop online or browse the web.
Improving health outcomes
Every decision we make is driven by delivering improved health outcomes for our clients. Our digital technology allows us to predict risk and shape the care we provide. We measure health outcomes.
We want to know we are improving the quality of our clients’ lives every year.
Our health and well-being aim to reduce:
- Behaviours that challenge
- Antipsychotic drugs in dementia care
- Falls in the home
- Hospital admissions
- Readmission to hospital
- Urinary tract infections (UTIs)
- Chest infections
- Carer stress
- They aim to promote:
- Independence
- Well-being
- Excellent nutrition and hydration
- Enjoyment in life
Highest service rating from care regulators in England and Scotland
Unlike introduction agencies we are fully regulated in England and Scotland. This means the care and support we provide is regularly inspected. We are the only dedicated live-in care provider in England to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ rating by the Care Quality Commission (CQC). We have achieved this rating in all five measures – safe, effective, caring, responsive and well-led. In Scotland, our service has been inspected by the Care Inspectorate (CI). It has achieved the highest rating of a 6 (Excellent) for quality of care and support and 5 (very good) for staffing, management and leadership. We know this provides families with peace of mind that their loved one is receiving the best possible care.
A fully managed service
Families benefit from our fully managed service delivered by care experts. This means you do not need to worry about supervising and managing the carer looking after your loved one. Our professional carers are supervised by an experienced care manager and supported by clinical experts. We provide this support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your dedicated care manager will be on hand to support you, your loved one and our carer teams. We invest in our care management team to ensure they have enough time to give the support everyone needs. With our fully managed service, families do not have the burden of managing the care arrangement themselves. We know this means families can have peace of mind, whilst enjoying quality time with their loved one. They do not have to worry about the tasks of caring
Local teams with national coverage
We operate throughout England and Scotland with a local approach to management of our teams near you. Each dedicated care manager local to you has only a small number of clients to support. This means they can provide higher levels of monitoring and support than other home care providers. It also means a highly personalised approach to care can be delivered.
Personal care costs
The costs of receiving personal care from a live-in carer are comparable to moving into a care home to receive personal care, with the added benefit of having a one-to-one service from a care team of two who really get to know your every need. Read more here about the cost of care.
Talk to us about live-in care today
We are here to talk to you about how live-in care works and how it can benefit you and your family. Call our friendly team today to see how we can help.