Bluebird Care Calderdale & Bradford

As well as working for Bluebird Care Calderdale & Bradford. I worked with a number of charities like the Rotary Club, Memory Lane Cafe, The Great Get Together and Disability Partnership Calderdale.

Gail manages our live-in care service. Here's her summary of her role:

“When someone is interested in live-in-care, or respite care, I go to meet them and discuss their needs. I get to know them and from that, I put together a care plan and organise care for them.

When I meet a client, I try to look at the person as a whole and support them to live in the way they want. I look at their circumstances with them and from that, I can identify how best to support them.

Live-in-care is a relatively new service and it's an area where we have a growing clientele. It’s an area of our work that growing fast and set to keep on growing quickly. There is definitely a need for live-in-care and much of the growth in this form of care has been recent. This is a shift caused, perhaps, because care homes are full and relatively expensive. Live-in-care is an excellent alternative for some people.

I’ve worked in home care, live-in-care and in residential care. It’s true that you sometimes see a faster decline in residential care. With live-in-care particularly, we can provide a client with company and continued access to their familiar community, friends and family in their own homes.

Again, with clients with dementia, live-in-care in their own home is generally better than residential care. The familiar environment of a person’s own home is often preferable where dementia is involved.”

Here's Gail on the specific skills she brings to her role:
I think my experience of working in a range of care environments means I’m better able to look at the full picture of a person’s circumstances and use that to help improve their care. It’s spotting things like the mobility aids they might need and making their home environment better for them. It also allows me to best support their families and friends who are probably in the dark when it comes to what care is available. In some ways, they benefit as much as the client. Families can be in real distress and we can reassure them and help to guide them.

What’s Gail’s favourite part of the job?
The office-based bit is nice, especially when working with passionate and inspiring people. But I get a lot of satisfaction from making a difference with our clients. Sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference. It’s pinpointing the things that really matter and focusing on them and making the most of the positives. It’s about asking the right questions and finding out what is really important to them. In this job, anything can happen and you can get almost anything thrown at you. Helping in these situations is very satisfying and the best bit is when we can go in, provide reassurance and make the family and person happy.

Laura looks after community engagement and marketing.

My job is to ensure our customers are happy and comfortable with the care they are receiving. This also involves a lot of care planning for new customers who require domiciliary care, also known as home care. This service is where our carers visit once or more a day to provide care in the client’s own home.

I meet new customers, sit down with them and their families and make sure they receive the care that they want. It’s not just the customers we care for it’s the families as well.

My work means that I’m office-based for three days per week and out meeting clients, old and new on the remaining two days. This can vary from one to perhaps as many as six clients per week, mainly new ones. I also work on our marketing, on days I’m in the office.

We then asked Laura about the specific skills she brings to her role:
I think I’m caring, compassionate and easily approachable. I’ve had a number of different jobs in care but I’ve always been drawn back to home care, there’s just something special about it. I really enjoy getting involved in people’s care, making sure they’re comfortable in their surroundings and even becoming part of their family.

I have previously done a lot of home care for Bluebird and I still keep in touch with clients and call in to see how they’re doing.
What’s Laura’s favourite part of the job?

My favourite part of the job is being out there with the people. I love the Bluebird office team but I love being out there meeting our clients even more.

Diane has over 40 years of experience in providing care in Calderdale. When she isn’t working, she loves playing Bingo, walking in the country, socialising, and spending quality time with her family.

Holidays abroad, usually taking visits to ruins, which are of special interest to Diane.

Hi, my name is Neil, I am a family man and father of two boys and two girls, and I hate to admit it, at an age where I have several lovely grandchildren. I am also a stepdad to two boys and their grandchildren. I love sports and support (on telly), both Leeds Rhinos (being an ex-rugby league amateur player) and Leeds United being a local Leeds lad. I also like to keep myself fit ish

I have been a manager for over 25 years both in Manufacturing and Quality. The last 7 years were spent predominantly in a Quality and Assurance role, ensuring Quality, Health & Safety, and Environmental compliance.

Having introduced Complete Quality assurance systems in manufacturing environments being fully compliant with ISO9001:2015, and managing the Quality of both products and systems for many years, Quality is key in all aspects of life, I wanted to bring my external experience to the Care Industry.

Quality is not just about product quality, it is about people, and how the company can get the best from its people, introducing methods to achieve compliance but also training and involving all staff to achieve the best in whatever environment. As a manager, you often find yourself – taking constructive input from your own staff, but also your customers and anyone who has involvement/influence. It is key that you use these Inputs to try to achieve best practice disciplines in all areas.

Fundamentally it’s about teams and developing teams to achieve the best outcome.

Quality and people care are fundamental in any environment and while in my previous roles, I was not involved directly in my working environment as a people carer, in my personal life I have had significant involvement directly in people care as I was the sole carer for my father for over 10 years before his passing – Hence why I am so passionate about this role.

Qualifications - HNC mechanical engineering, Managing safety, Risk management, Core tools IATF 16949, Quality system auditing and internal auditing to ISO9001:2015, GDPR, COSHH, together with all the necessary Care related training (Care Certificate 1 through 15 and several others) and Safeguarding train the trainer qualifications.