Good things come in threes

The winners of the Aged Care Accreditation Agency’s Better Practice Awards were announced last Friday, with Hall & Prior’s Leighton, Rockingham and Windsor Park homes winning three of the five awards given to aged care homes in Western Australia for projects that go above and beyond to provide the best quality care for their residents.

Palliative Care at Rockingham Aged Care Home

Rockingham Aged Care Home’s award in the Health and Personal Care category was given for its established Palliative Care Program, which demonstrates a proactive and holistic approach to end of life care.

Establishing the program has been a passion of the home’s director of nursing, Linda Marlow, since she started at Rockingham eight years ago.

The home has transformed palliative care into an area that is approachable and manageable for her staff and her residents’ families through providing information, continuous education and fostering a culture of open communication about palliative care in her home.

Workplace Harmonisation at Windsor Park Care Home

Windsor Park’s Workplace Harmonisation Program received an award in the Staff Development and Retention category. The program was created to support and empower the culturally diverse staff and resident population—109 staff from 22 countries that care for 114 residents of 12 nationalities—to develop a workplace culture based on three of Hall & Prior’s key values: respect, equity and empathy.

The key to the program’s success has been the commitment to implement initiatives suggested by staff to create an enabling environment where all staff are supported and empowered to bring about change—not just at work, but in the community as well.

The network that has resulted reaches far beyond the home to include the Department of Housing, the Women’s Refuge Centre, the WA Dementia Training Study Centre and renowned Noongar artist, Ron Gidgup, who has been an invaluable resource for all staff to help them care for the home’s Aboriginal residents.

Evac Eddie at Leighton Aged Care Home

Leighton Aged Care Home’s initiative to create a life sized mannequin to turn fire safety education into a practical learning activity won the organisation its third award. The mannequin—affectionately known as Evac Eddie—has helped staff  improve their confidence and knowledge of fire safety methods exponentially by making the exercise visual and hands-on, rather than written and academic.

The project addresses the need to make fire safety training accessible and relevant for a culturally diverse staff population, with the added benefit of enabling all staff to gain practical experience in evacuation procedures without creating a manual handling risk for staff.