Good Oaks Care Team Wins Team Of The Year At The Prestigious Home Care Heroes Awards

The team provides home care visits and live-in care for elderly patients, so they can continue to live happily and safely within their own homes for as long as possible. This meant that the team’s clients were all classed as vulnerable and the team swung into action in March to ensure they could keep everyone safe and healthy.

Ingrida Savickaite, Director of Good Oaks in Reading, said the team were over the moon to have been recognised with the win. She said: “It’s amazing, it’s so nice for the team to be recognised and rewarded. Most of the time the team works quietly behind the scenes looking after our clients, we are helping the NHS, and so it’s great to be noticed for the good job we are doing. We have such an amazing team here – I’m so proud to be part of Good Oaks.”

Many Good Oaks live-in carers isolated with clients so they could continue to provide the best and safest care for them, and it meant the team also supporting each other. This meant delivering food parcels to clients who chose to self-isolate at home and regular contact calls and Skype videos, delivering PPE to clients and carers, setting up a group chat to discuss where the best places were to get supermarket slots for food and delivering food parcels and shopping.

Miss Savickaite said that the team were dedicated to best practise and making sure that everyone in their care was looked after to the highest and safest standard. People were cared for in a holistic way, rather than time-and-task based manner – so that meant that if a carer needed to stay slightly longer with a client who was feeling isolated, low or anxious, they were given that time. It was important to the team that nothing felt rushed and they could be there for their clients at that critical time.

The Reading team were supported by their franchisor, Good Oaks, who made sure the team was supported throughout the Pandemic. During the acute phase of PPE shortages Good Oaks delivered emergency supplies of aprons and gloves to ensure that staff always had the PPE they needed.

Ben Ashton, co-founder of Good Oaks Home Care, said: “We are so proud of the team. They have truly gone the extra mile for their clients and team. They have shown just how caring they are and just how dedicated they are to supporting each other and looking after each other and their clients – which is our ethos here at Good Oaks. This year has been tough for carers and clients alike, and so it’s brilliant to see the team get the recognition they deserve. We are very proud.”