Business View Oceania | January 2020

103 104 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2020 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA JANUARY 2020 how we are benefitting from that approach is that we have just welcomed a group of nursing students coming out from the University of Taiwan to experience the New Zealand aged care industry. It’s important that we have become a destination of choice where people say “Wow, this is where we can do some serious learning!” The positive consequence to that approach is both from a student’s perspective, but also from our residents’ perspective, as they are surrounded by competent staff who are living and working daily at the correct end of ‘best practice’. “The second most important change was then looking at the environmental stimulus context of our facility. The facility that we have is a bit of a box; and we had to spend the time to bring life to that building. There has been a lot of outstanding work done to that space, particularly with the most amazing Specialised Care Unit. My diversional therapy team are absolute stars and a lot of our resources in the last three years support community, including our contract partners, recognise us as a place where it’s ‘big action, not big talk! When you walk into this facility, you’ll be greeted by people who are happy to say “Hi” and engage with you because it’s the most natural thing in the world to look after somebody, not because some boss tells them to do it. “In order for us to be able to operationalise ‘big action’ just over 82 percent of our staff are fully qualified. One of my priorities was to make sure they are right up there in terms of their knowledge base and competencies. We only get funding in New Zealand for having 60 percent of our staff at Level 4 – the highest level of clinical qualification for caregivers. But I take the financial hit for training to have a really solid competent organisation around me. That’s why people come here because they know they’ll get the best care. Furthermore, we are now a learning hub for Allied Health and clinical health professionals. An excellent example of WINDSORCARE have been spent on developing and building the capability of that section to achieve our higher purpose. Engaging The Clown Doctors, more Diversional Therapy hours, as well as going from three to 17 volunteers have all played their part. However, the most significant positive impact has been achieved by removing ‘silos’ across the experiential environment. For example, we no longer see our facility as divided up into Dementia, Rest Home or Hospital residents and so on, but an integrated ‘community’ of 250 (facility residents, retirement village residents and staff) adding value to each other’s lives. From the perspective of residents and their relatives, the change in methodology has been absolutely stunning”. BVO: Where do the Clown Doctors fit into the story? Smith: “In terms of adding a broader, more meaningful living environment for the residents, we’ve engaged an international group known as The Clown Doctors. Practitioners that study with the support of a University in Germany. Their specific skills are found through using entertainment to help us bring a higher quality of life to the resident through memory based stimulation, and in the course of their activity provide valuable feedback to staff on a person’s wellbeing which we then take into the practice setting. It is a magnificent collaboration of practitioners supporting practitioners!” BVO: Operation-wise have the numbers changed recently? Smith: “The size of the operation hasn’t changed since 2016. We are definitely limited by the size of our platform. In relation to our care facility we are limited to 80 beds. But in November 2019, we cleared some neighboring sections in order to build more cottages for our village. Another eight cottages will be built in the next year and we have plans for more going into 2021, which will eventually take us up to 70 cottages. Once we reach that size, that’s as big as we’ll get. The Management Team