How Hampshire-based ABClivein Care is empowering individuals with its person-centred approach to domiciliary care

Based in Farnham but operating across Hampshire, ABClivein Care is a wonderful solution to help people live independently in their own home with companionship, friendship and care when it is needed most. Its team is professional trained, qualified, and has a wealth of caring experience. We spoke to the company’s ambitious founder, Gabriela Marinescu, to find out more.

What are the benefits of receiving live-in care compared to living in a care facility?

Each customer is unique, and has his or her own individual lifestyle and needs. We provide them with the care and support they want – including where and when they want it. This service combines all the benefits of one-to-one care, with the added advantage of being in their own home environment. Domiciliary care isn’t just about daily domestic routines though. It can take the form of sitting and chatting, personal care, medication, cooking, sharing a hobby, or accompanying them to the shops, or a social visit, hospital appointments, swimming, concerts, church, and much more.

What process is undertaken in matching carers with specific clients, and how important is finding the right fit?

Pairing our clients with carers is a unique assessment, specifically developed to measure how well an individual can fulfil the correct job within our organisation. We only select staff who have the right experience and skills and who are passionate about making a difference to customers’ lives.

Each employee is unique and has unique qualities and skills. The HR manager must identify the strong qualities and capabilities of each candidate in order to demonstrate effective leadership and a good judge of character. We use a robust screening process when hiring staff. Our process typically includes the following steps:

• Application
• Screening & pre-selection
• Interview
• Assessment
• References and background DBS check
• Decision
• Job offer & contract

How does ABClivein Care enable and empower individuals to continue living independently?

ABClivein Care assists those in need of care to live as safely and comfortably as possible in their own homes. We achieve this by actively encouraging the independence, dignity, privacy, choice and wellbeing of all our service users. Our principal belief is one of delivering a continual high-quality service and developing relationships that actively encourage our customer’s own wellbeing. Our service users need to be sure and confident that ABClivein Care is a responsible and well-structured care company, with a professional management and staff team, whose knowledge, skills and attitudes are recognised, motivated, encouraged, developed and rewarded. It is after all, their loyalty and commitment to the company and its service users, which will ultimately lead us to provide the highest quality care provision.

What range of specialist support is provided to clients who have more complex health conditions?

We have a variety of clients with different complex health conditions, including clients with multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease, clients who have suffered a stroke or myocardial infarction, as well as clients battling with mental health conditions, most commonly varied forms of dementia.

When we take on new clients, we make sure that we get to know and fully understand their needs and co-morbidities. An initial assessment will determine whether we feel, as a company, that we are able to manage this client and their needs. We need to think about suitable carers, and we try our best to not only match the skills of the carer but also the personalities as this helps the carers and client feel more at ease and helps to build a good professional working relationship. Carers have specific training that ensures they fully understand the client’s health conditions and how to manage them. All of our care workers are calm and positive, which helps clients feel comfortable and happy. They are not only trained to care for clients but also, they are trained to listen and understand as well as offer emotional support as required.

What range of characteristics does ABClivein Care look for when hiring professional carers?

We look for carers who are trustworthy, compassionate, conscientious, professional, has excellent communication skills, and a basic knowledge of the laws and regulations surrounding adult health & social care. Although it seems simple, it is essential our carers have a friendly face and bubbly personality. A happy carer equals a happy client. We offer a full induction as well as shadow training – the length of which is dependent on the candidate’s experience, understanding and confidence within the role.

The care sector has been under particular pressure in recent years, particularly since the pandemic. How has your service continued to thrive during this period?

ABClivein Care’s staff receives robust training in infection/prevention control, and implements strict policies regarding hand washing and safe removal and disposal of PPE. Both during and after the pandemic, ABClivein Care had enough PPE in stock and it has always been freely supplied to our staff care workers. As result, ABClivein Care was identified care top provider in Hampshire being part of rapid discharge team, admitting home patients with Covid, also contributing to freeing up hospitals beds for new patients. Considering all that, our most proud achievement in the last few years is that ABClivein Care successfully managed to keep everybody safe – including both service users and staff.

What do you believe sets ABClivein Care apart from other care providers in the region?

Staff are extremely proud of their achievements. The ratings have made the team even stronger than before. There is a sense of ‘we are really good at what we do’ and this has, of course, made staff happy, proud and confident in their work. To be recognised for their hard work has definitely boosted staff morale across the organisation. We have felt reassured that all of the systems and processes we’ve worked very hard to put into place actually work.

We want to build a world where all people are safe, strong and valued. To have the respect, dignity and opportunity to live their life the way they wish, with our help and support in all aspects of their health care.

We want to help make their life better in all aspects of health care and help them lead an independent life and be treated as a human being and feel valued and respected. We have a very strong management team which make a very strong team of workers. We train and qualify our staff to deliver quality service from all aspects of healthcare. We listen to our service users and their families. We respect their wishes and needs. We consider them close to our hearts. We are always interested in having good communication with all parties, including service users, their families, social services, nurses and doctors. We form friendships and bonds with our service users and they become friends and part of our family. We see ourselves not just as carers, but also as companions in all their life aspects. Many times, we were told by service users that they don’t see us as carers, but as family.

We will always go that extra mile when possible. The staff feel valued and respected. What we promise, we deliver. With each visit we leave a smile on our service user’s face. Our carers are 100% passionate about every single service user needs and will always help in other things other than just their care needs.

Are there any plans to expand your services or reach in the future?

ABClivein Care has planned to expand the boundaries in more localities in Hampshire and is always looking for new opportunities in new areas.

To find out more about ABClivein Care’s personalised home-care services and how they can help you and your loved ones, please visit www.abcliveincare.co.uk, or call them directly on 01252 448671.