Patrick Ishola is our Star Carer for June. He works at Best Options Care in Northumberland.
Patrick’s Manager, Deji Akinsola, nominated him for the award and says:
“Patrick is an outstanding carer; who at age 62, always goes beyond the call of duty to ensure the wellbeing of his service users. As a non driving carer, he walks and uses public transport to the service users’ home. Patrick was awarded our first carer of the month in May for his outstanding dedication, commitment and sacrificial work with the service users and team members. He is an asset to our company.”
Managing non driving carers
We have noticed through conversations with a number of CareLineLive customers recently an increase in the number of non driving carers. This can be due to the costs of learning to drive, car ownership as well as changing demographics in terms of those now working as carers. We asked Deji Akinsola, the Registered Manager at Best Options Care, about how they manage visits with a workforce that includes 15 non drivers. He said that they work under the following guidelines:
- Non drivers are sent to service users that are close to their homes
- They are also sent to service users that are within working distance to each other
- Carer rosters are managed by spacing the time of calls according to bus times, and bus routes
- Non drivers are also paired up with other staff who do drive enabling them to drop off their colleague off if working in same area
- Where there is a requirement for two carers for a service user they pair up drivers and non drivers
- Best Options Care provides bus fares to staff that solely rely on buses
- Finally non drivers are given long hour packages to enable them to be at one place for a longer time
Deji says “Obviously having non drivers can be difficult and our preference will always be to have drivers where we can but we are grateful for amazing staff like Patrick regardless. Having non driving carers can be very challenging sometimes as the buses might be late and it can be particularly challenging during weekends and bank holidays. I sometimes arrange to drop staff off at work myself. We cannot pick some packages because we don’t have drivers, which limits our capacity. Staff that don’t drive have more limited work hours as the travel time can be a lot compared to the worked call time”.
Below is our interview with Star Carer Patrick.
What was your reaction to winning CareLineLive’s June Star Carer Award?
l was speechless and amazed l wasn’t expecting this.
What aspects of being a carer do you enjoy?
Seeing my clients being happy and making them feel independent. Seeing me as friend that is there to give a hand rather than being their carer.
How does CareLineLive’s Carer Companion App help in your job?
CareLineLive makes my job easy, it’s a quicker way to see the report of the colleague that worked with the client earlier, this helps me in reviewing what needs to be done.
What are the challenges in your job?
Non adherence of the clients’ family to provide on-time what is needed to take care of the clients. Seeing my clients unhappy and not being able to express themselves coherently on what is making them unhappy is a challenge in job as well.
The only challenge l face as a non driving carer are the bus times. Most times l have to get out of my house an hour earlier so as to make it to my clients place on time.
How do you switch off after a hard day at work?
After a hard day at work, l switch off by getting home, having a long warm bath and re channelling my mind to things that are positive.
