Beaumont Care: Where Each Resident is Special, Individual and Important

Beaumont Care has accommodation and services in three locations on the Redcliffe Peninsula in Queensland. There are aged care homes at Kippa Ring, Redcliffe and Rothwell and a supported accommodation facility in rural Wamuran.

The three aged care facilities which had been established many years ago, were bought by Ian and Linda Beaumont in December 2011. They had been running a supported living accommodation at Wamuran for a number of years and they realised that they were transferring many of their residents to these Homes located on the Redcliffe Peninsula. The Beaumonts purchased the three aged care homes and established Beaumont Care as they wanted to provide continuity of care with a known provider for the residents of Wamuran.

All the homes run by Beaumont Care have a range of facilities and the greatest attention is paid to the health and welfare of residents. The staff at each of the facilities display genuine warmth and affection towards the residents. Each home has a Service Manager who is a Registered Nurse and residents have access to a physiotherapist, visiting general practitioners and specialists, podiatrists, speech pathologists, massage therapists and dieticians.

Each of the homes houses residents in home-like and cheerful surroundings. Rooms are bright and airy and have an abundance of natural light. The premises are spotlessly clean, with a number of common areas available for residents and their families.

New residents are welcomed, with special care being taken to allow them to get used to their surroundings. Residents can spend time on a range of activities organised at the homes including bus outings, concerts, men’s groups, high teas and walking programs.

Beaumont Care places great emphasis on the recruitment and training of its staff and, believing that each resident is special and deserves to be treated as an individual, has an excellent staff to resident ratio.

Jeanette Evans, General Manager of three residential aged care services on the Redcliffe Peninsula says, “Altogether we have about 200 staff. About 20% are registered nursing staff, 50% are assistant nurses and 30% are hospitality staff. We are very careful with our staff selection. Our philosophy at Beaumont Care is that our residents are special and our personnel key, and so we carefully select the personnel who support our residents.”

Each of the aged care homes run by Beaumont Care provides high care and low care services and ensures that each resident is cared for in the best possible manner.

Beaumont Care – Peninsula at Kippa-ring

The Service Manager at this 80-bed facility is a vibrant, young lady who is truly focused on providing the best care for residents. The home is within walking distance of a private hospital and specialist medical centre and there is also a large public hospital in the vicinity.

Registered Nurses are available on a 24-hour basis and the staff also includes Enrolled Nurses, assistants in nursing, and a number of other support personnel.

Family and friends are encouraged to visit their loved ones at Beaumont Care Peninsula and spend time with them. There are several parks and beaches close at hand, in addition to a large shopping centre and a cinema.

Many of the residents are from the immediate area and as a consequence, Beaumont Care Peninsula has deep ties with the local community.

A range of activities is organised to keep residents active. Ten pin bowling is one popular pastime. A number of outings are organised and residents are encouraged to take up or continue activities like gardening, cooking, fishing, singing, painting and reading.

Beaumont Care Redcliffe

Beaumont Care Redcliffe is a highly sought-after home located in Baringa Street in the quiet suburb of Clontarf. The strategic location of the facility gives residents and their friends and relatives easy access to public transport.

Residents also have the advantage of having shops, beaches, coffee shops and cinemas in the vicinity of the facility.

Beaumont Care Redcliffe offers 63 beds in an assortment of single and double-bed rooms for persons classified as ‘high or low care’.

Residents are encouraged to remain as active as possible, but help is always available at hand for any requirement that they may have.

In a unique feature, all the Beaumont Care facilities allow residents to keep their pets with them.  Each of the homes has a resident pet – a dog or a cat.  In addition to this, unlike many other aged care homes, Beaumont Care permits its residents to smoke. Speaking about this, Jeanette Evans says, “One of our points of difference is that we allow the residents to bring in their pets with them.

“If a prospective resident has had a small pet for a number of years, rather than having to say goodbye to them, we let them bring them into the home to live with us. And another point for us is the fact that we will take people who smoke. A number of aged care homes have decided that they will not offer accommodation to people who smoke.

“We have had only four residents who have brought in their pets so far. But we have had a number of relatives who bring in family pets to visit their loved ones when they come into the home. So it not unusual to have quite a few pets visiting our residents. And yes, we have quite a reasonable demand for accommodation from residents who smoke.”

Beaumont Care Rothwell

Beaumont Care Rothwell specialises in caring for those persons with specific health needs. It provides expert care for residents with early onset dementia, partial and full memory loss and Alzheimer’s disease. The staff are adept at recognising the needs which residents are unable to express and in meeting those needs.

Most of the staff members have completed Certificate level training in supporting residents who face mental health challenges.

Beaumont Care Rothwell encourages residents to bring personal items with them when they move into the home. This gives them a sense of comfort and helps them to adjust to their new life at the home and helps them to remember where their room is located.

A staff Chaplain, physiotherapist, podiatrist, art and massage therapists are available on-site. Additionally, a dementia behaviour management advisory service and a Consultant in best practice dementia care are accessed to provide advice re meeting the special needs of the residents.

Family are key to the best care for each resident and a family support group which meets monthly, encourages relatives and friends to network and develop support systems for each other.

Beaumont Care – Wamuran Park Home

Wamuran Park Home is a supported residential service, which can accommodate 70 residents who require support in daily living and accommodation. The facility is fully accredited and specialises in supporting persons with Korsakoff’s psychosis, alcohol-related memory loss, mild mental illness and intellectual disabilities.

The home has a resident support program, Centacare, which organises outings and other activities for residents.

AA meetings are held on-site, providing great convenience to residents. Care services are available on a 24-hour basis.

Wamuran Park has a home garden that is tended by some of its residents. This provides an enjoyable activity in addition to being a source of fresh, nutritious produce.

Adoption of technology

Beaumont Care has teamed up with Griffith University to develop a clinical system which will provide assistance in care governance. They also hope that it will serve to automate the tracking of resident care.

The Management was on the lookout for a suitable off-the-shelf system as it wanted to automate its resident care processes. But it was unable to find an appropriate match for its requirements. Recently it was approached by a contact at Griffith University and the system that will be developed as a result of this partnership is expected to meet Beaumont Care’s requirements for the next 10 to 15 years.

Staff training

The staff is highly trained and motivated. They treat each resident with respect and dignity. A visit to any of the Beaumont Care facilities is an uplifting experience. The premises have a pleasant atmosphere and the staff greet people with warmth and a genuine smile.

A casual visitor would observe that there is plenty of cheerful interaction between staff and residents. The aroma of home cooking pervades the homes, tantalizing the taste buds of residents and staff alike.

In an effort to further enhance the skills and capabilities of its staff, the management has recently established Beaumont Care Academy in collaboration with Kelly Colleges.

The Academy plans to offer a variety of courses including the Diploma of Nursing and, eventually, a Bachelor of Nursing for Registered Nurses. The objective of the training Academy is to graduate work-ready personnel who can take up assignments in one of the four facilities or with other aged care providers.

Expansion plans

In the last four years, Beaumont Care has greatly enhanced its reputation as a provider of excellent aged care services. Each of its four homes has competent and experienced staff who go to great lengths to ensure that residents are given every possible form of comfort and support.

As the demand for its services has grown, Beaumont Care has initiated several plans to expand and enhance its facilities. Jeanette Evans explains, “We have plans on the drawing board to refurbish our home at Kippa-ring which is called Peninsula Aged Care Service.

“We will be doing over $1 million of refurbishment and that will create a lot more privacy and dignity for our residents in that we will have more two-bed rooms, more single rooms and more access for our residents to en-suites and showers and also more private sitting areas.

“We are doing the same at our Rothwell home as well. The cost for that will be about $800,000. We will have to go to the bank for a loan to get the projects up and running. We are hoping to build a brand new facility at our Rothwell site, which will cater specifically to people with dementia.   We hope to also provide a large training room there.”

“We have an allocation of 80 beds to build an aged care facility at Wamuran. The design of the facility has been completed but we are waiting to refurbish our facilities on the Redcliffe Peninsula before we build Wamuran.”

“We are also making a foray into the provision of community care and are hoping to support people with disabilities under the NDIS. Our belief that each person who accesses our services is special, fits nicely with the consumer directed care agenda and we believe that staff are well prepared to support clients to live independently and to provide them with their desired quality of life and care.”