Genuine Person Centred Care

I really like that message for the way it puts the emphasis of our work in aged care very firmly on our residents and their needs, desires and values.

Making a care home feel like home depends on a number of things including the frequency of the tea trolley, the building’s design and decor, whether you can hear people talking and laughing, the presence of music, flowers and dogs and most importantly, the way staff treat residents.

In thinking about their engagement with residents, I suggest to staff that a good place to start is by recognising that it’s not easy to come into a care home. It’s really hard giving up your independence even if you have got to the stage where you need extra care and support.

That means residents don’t find it easy to ring a bell even when they need assistance, to accept help with their personal cares, to follow a timetable set by someone else, to have people checking on them regularly and to feel like they can’t leave the building without someone asking where they’re going.

I think it’s important for staff to be aware of how residents might be feeling and to do every-thing they can to help them retain their sense of independence and freedom. So we talk about simple things like knocking on people’s doors before entering their rooms, asking residents to do things rather than telling them, letting people make their own decisions as much as possible and being prepared to trust them.

Some of these things are harder to do than others especially when residents are physically frail and do need help or when they’re on the dementia journey and staff worry that they will be unsafe without their assistance. However, giving people the ability to do things for themselves makes such a difference to their well-being and self-esteem and helps them feel as if they’re still in control of their lives.

In the health sector people talk a lot about “patient-centred care” which for me means putting residents first and always treating them with respect and dignity. In thinking about the way those of us working in aged care engage with residents, a useful question to keep in mind might be “how would I like to be treated in my home?”