Ashridge Home Care Awarded for Innovation in Care During Pandemic
The first week of November was Care Heroes Awards Week and Ashridge Home Care won a prestigious title to mark its efforts during the past year. The 4-year-old home care company, which arranges either live-in or visiting carers to attend clients across the South East of England, was crowned winner in the Innovation in Care category. This award celebrates those companies that have thought outside the box to bring joy and comfort to those they care for.
Care Home Professional and Home Care Insight funded the awards this year. Judges said Ashridge Home Care won for their willingness and total commitment to their staff and customers and their unwavering dedication to continue to deliver 24-hour care to their entire client base.
The winners were chosen by a prestigious panel of judges: Dr Jane Townson, CEO of United Kingdom Homecare Association (UKHCA); Kathryn Smith, CEO of the Social Care Institute for Excellence; Professor Martin Green, CEO of Care England; and Vic Rayner, executive director of the National Care Forum.
Trudi Scrivener, Managing Director of Ashridge Home Care said: ‘Winning this prestigious Home Care Heroes (Innovation) 2020 Award makes me immensely proud. These awards mark the success of the whole team, who show absolute dedication and commitment to providing outstanding home care. The team were 100% committed to ensuring that carers were looked after and motivated so they in turn could ensure our clients were happy and safe. The ideas and outside-the-box thinking was truly inspiring and we will continue many practices even once this pandemic is over. To be recognised by an award is such great news amidst a tough time for everyone working in frontline services. Our focus now is to continue to support as many people as possible who want to remain in their own homes.’
Innovation has always been rewarded and encouraged at Ashridge. Prior to Covid-19, a carer who was a great chef was promoted to head chef and helped mentor other carers whose skills were lacking in the kitchen to learn how to cook simple meals for their clients. This resulted in a recipe book which is shared amongst carers and, during lockdown, Trudi secured help from TV nutritionist Janet Brinkworth from TV’s Saturday Morning Kitchen. Together they launched Ashridgelicious Food Lovers group for the live-in carers to learn new easy, nutritious meals to cook for their clients as well as featuring an online Q&A option so if a carer couldn’t access ingredients she suggested good alternatives. The group shared photos of food and were encouraged to make mealtimes special. One carer tried the Pizza Express dough recipe and made passata from scratch for a lovely home cooked Italian meal, whilst another recreated a favourite restaurant setting with their client.
The whole head office team was innovative and took part in sourcing other professional help from within the community – they arranged for various health practitioners to share videos enabling carers to help their clients, one from a footcare practitioner to teach carers basic footcare to help clients who couldn’t attend appointments. A visiting carer also runs a successful yoga business ‘Zest Yoga’ and she developed a 10-minute yoga routine that carers could do with clients to keep them moving and increase their circulation. Trudi even managed to source a celebrity – frontman of Spandau Ballet, Tony Hadley, to share a moral boosting message. Currently a book group for clients and carers is in development to be launched virtually shortly.
Ashridge Home Care employs more than 80 visiting and live-in carers and works with clients across the South East England from its base in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.
To find out more about Ashridge Home Care visit www.ashridgehomecare.co.uk or for an informal chat about how a visiting or a live-in carer might benefit someone in your family, telephone 01494 917344.
Image shows the team embracing one of their many initiatives this year and wearing yellow for World Mental Health Day.