Day in the life Age of change
Simon McGee is the Home Instead Senior Care franchisee for Chichester and Bognor Regis. Here, he describes a typical day…
8.30am
I’ll grab a coff ee and meet with my team to catch up. Our training room is furnished with items from the house of my late grandma, who was cared for by Home Instead Senior Care’s Eastbourne franchise; this is how I was introduced to the company. I loved their philosophy: continuity of care, visits lasting an hour and a relationship-led approach. To have my grandma’s belongings here is really special and it means that when we’re training our caregivers, they’re learning in a ‘typical’ environment, rather than in a modern training room.
10.00am
A lot of my time is spent out in the local community. It may be that I’m delivering a talk at a residents’ meeting about the support we off er, or attending an event run by a local charity to catch up on what’s going on in our community. At Home Instead, dementia care is a big part of the support we provide and it’s incredibly important to me. Once a month, I deliver a Dementia Friends session to our new employees, which is a great complement to the bespoke City & Guilds qualifi cation in dementia care that Home Instead caregivers can undertake.
“While I feel a huge sense of responsibility in owning a franchise in the care sector, I also feel the most fulfi lled I ever have”
12.00pm Our caregivers are in and out of the offi ce throughout the day, whether it’s for training, to pick up or drop off documents, or to talk to the team about their clients. The most fulfi lling part of my role is seeing our caregivers doing what they love. It’s incredibly satisfying to give people the right job and then hear the extraordinary client feedback. I make sure that our 45 caregivers know I’m here for support, and
at least once a week I’m usually contacting one of them to thank them for going above and beyond for our clients. I also make a point of contacting all our new caregivers in their fi rst month to get their feedback and ensure they feel engaged.
2.00pm We run a monthly memory café event that takes place in the local pub, making it accessible for our community. Each event has 50 to 60 people, mostly living with dementia. Some will be our clients but many aren’t; it’s important to develop relationships in the community. We usually run it as a vintage tea party with a quiz. Music plays a big part, as it’s stimulating for people’s memories. If we’re not holding an event, I’ll either head out of the offi ce to meet some of our 65 clients in their homes or I’ll be looking after the ‘business’ side of our franchise. It’s important to me to hear
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from our clients and their families about what we’re doing well and where we can improve. We have a strong franchise network and I will visit other offi ces or they’ll also come to us; sharing best practice and peer support is important. Before leaving the offi ce for the day, we’ll discuss the on-call rota for that evening. As an offi ce, we’re on call until 10pm – it’s important to off er support and advice to our caregivers while they’re out in the community delivering care. While I feel a huge sense of responsibility in owning a franchise in the care sector, I also feel the most fulfi lled I ever have. No two days are the same and my life has changed for the better – all while helping to achieve Home Instead’s mission to change the face of ageing.
franchiseinfo@homeinstead.co.uk Simon McGee
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