Our Hours of Business

Admiral Care staff is normally available to care for you between the hours of 0500 and 2300, Monday - Sunday. Admiral Care office is open between the hours of 0900 and 1700, Monday - Friday; however, Admiral Care staffs are on call outside of these hours to deal with emergencies and urgent client enquiries. Night services can be arranged between 2200 and 0700 and Admiral Care Responder Service operates 24 hours.

How Admiral Care deliver Your Care Service

Initial Referral

When you realised that you needed care you may have approached Admiral Care directly or as a result of a Healthcare Assessment through the Primary Care Trust; alternatively, you may have been referred to us by the Social Services Department from which you initially sought help and which has accepted at least some financial responsibility. In either case, information about you which is passed to us will be dealt with sensitively and in confidence. Before providing any services we will need to talk to you as the person who is going to be receiving the service, perhaps with your carer if there is one, and with the Social Services Department/Primary Care Trust which contacted us. At the very outset we need to be sure that the services we provide are going to be suitable for you.

Assessing the need

If someone is referred to us from a Social Services department or Primary Care Trust, the Local Authority Care Manager or Nurse Assessor will have carried out an assessment of what you need before deciding that domiciliary care, a care service delivered in your own home, will meet your needs. A summary of this information, usually called a needs assessment will have been passed to us.

If you have approached us directly, Admiral Care needs to make an assessment ourselves. To do this we will need to ask you quite a lot of questions and probably seek information from your carer, doctor and any other specialists who know about your health and care needs.

Admiral Care hope that you do not find the process by which Admiral Care get to know your needs too intrusive. Admiral Care want to build up a full picture and we will do this as quickly and tactfully as possible. Remember, all information will be treated confidentially. Admiral Care aim is to make sure that we understand what you need and what your preferences are about services, so that we can respond in ways which really suit you.

Assessing the Risks

If you have decided to have care provided in your own home, you will know of course that it carries some risk. The Admiral Care Worker will not be with you all the time, so there will not be the same level of support as you would receive in, for example a residential home. On the other hand you retain your independence and many people find that, on balance, a measure of risk is worthwhile. Nevertheless, Admiral Care wants to be sure that everybody concerned understands the risks and has thought about them responsibly and that the risks taken are not unreasonable or unnecessary. So, with you Admiral Care carry out a risk assessment, weighing up the risks to be taken with the advantages, and if it seems appropriate we might make suggestions as to how unnecessary risks can be minimised. At the same time Admiral Care perform a simple assessment of your home environment to identify any areas of undue risk to our Admiral Care staff as well. From this we develop your personal Admiral Care Plan. As we explained, this Admiral Care Plan is continuously reviewed and changed to make sure that it continues to meet your needs.

What Admiral Care Offer

Admiral Care provides quality individual care to each of our Clients in their own home environment. According to need we are able to provide a tailored package of care for you who can include some or all of the following:

• helping with personal tasks
• helping you to prepare meals and to eat them
• helping you to clean your home, and to do the laundry
• helping with arranging your shopping needs, and if necessary to do the shopping
• helping you with arranging social events in your life
• making sure you are aware of the need to take any medicines that may have been prescribed
• helping you to look after your pets
• Admiral Care night care
• key holding service
• emergency call-out service
• ‘back home’ service (from hospital, friends or relatives)
• helping you with letter writing, reading and phone calls.

People for who services are provided

• Older People
• People with physical disabilities
• People with sensory loss, including those with dual sensory impairment
• >People with mental health problems
• People with learning disabilities

What Admiral Care Can’t Do

There are, however, some things Admiral Care are not allowed to do, many of these are listed below. The list is not intended to be exhaustive but to give you a clear idea of what we may not do:

• administer medication to the Client without the Company’s prior written consent

• become directly involved with medical or nursing care
• handle the Client’s monies except under strictly documented conditions

• accept food from the Client for a meal which the Care Worker would normally provide for himself/herself

• undertake any duties other than those specified in the Care Plan, unless express authorisation is obtained from the Company and is agreed with the Client

• smoke or consume alcohol while in the Client’s home
• Bring other members of their family, eg children, or any other unauthorised persons into the Client’s home.  Similarly, the Care Worker will not bring pets into a Client’s home

• accept gifts or benefits from a Client
• accept any direct payment from the Client for services rendered, and not become involved in selling any personal goods or services to the Client

• make use of the Client’s property, eg telephone, for his/her personal use

• carry out duties in an unoccupied house