A nurse practitioner, a health and wellbeing team and a provider serving older Australians in two states including remote areas have been recognised for excellence at the aged care industry’s biggest event of the year.
The inaugural Leading Age Services Australia (LASA) Excellence in Age Services Awards recognising an outstanding organisation, team and individual were presented at its National Congress in Adelaide on Tuesday 30 October.
The Awards promote and recognise excellence across the diverse and dynamic fields of endeavour in the age services industry and celebrate the passion and achievements of organisations, teams and individuals in the service of older Australians.
Outstanding Individual Award winner Claire Abbott, a nurse practitioner at Peninsula Villages on the New South Wales central coast, collaborates with local visiting GPs in providing care, services and treatment plans to residents.
Claire’s role is integral as it allows the organisation to assist residents who require ongoing or one-off care, giving them peace of mind that they are receiving top-tier care throughout their time at the Village.
Carer Health and Wellbeing Coaching Team, from CarerLinks North in Melbourne, took out the Outstanding Team Award for their coaching program to enhance the caring relationship through a focus on the health and wellbeing of the carer, which may include nutrition, physical activity, stress/mood, fatigue/sleep and chronic disease management or prevention.
Through individual coaching sessions, undertaken either face to face or by phone, the health and wellbeing coaches work to foster carer health literacy, goal setting, resilience, self-management, decision making and sustained behaviour change.
The program evaluates its impact by collecting qualitative and quantitative health data at milestones in the coaching journey which are measurable and comparable to initial data, thus, generating a health profile for each participating carer.
The age services provider who has made an outstanding contribution to care and services development and provided high level support to the aged by demonstrating leadership, innovation and excellence is The Whiddon Group.
Whiddon is a not-for-profit organisation that has been providing care and support services to older people for over 70 years and operates in 20 locations across New South Wales and Queensland.
In some areas, such as in the far west of New South Wales, they are not only the only provider in town, but the only provider of aged care services for hundreds of kilometres.
In congratulating the winners LASA Chief Executive Officer Sean Rooney said they represented the best care and services being delivered to older Australians by LASA Members.
“These awards show just how much great work is being done by our Members right around the country, including isolated and remote parts of Australia,” he said.
“Committed and devoted people like Claire, the CarerLinks North team and the staff at Whiddon exemplify the best of what our industry has to offer to older Australians everywhere.
“I’m delighted to see the industry get behind these inaugural awards by entering such a strong field of contenders and I’m certain that the bar will be raised even higher next year.”
