Home support for seniors extended in Prince George

With the goal to keep seniors at home as long as possible, Northern Health's Elder Service Network program just underwent a refresh of its home support services.

“In every community in the Northern Health region where we have home support teams we’ve been going through exercises to review the service we have, understand the volume of service required and doing what we can to increase where we need to, so we’re trying to hire more people, and look at service hours to expand into the evenings and overnight where possible, especially in larger communities and Prince George is a good example of that,” Aaron Bond, executive lead of the Elder Services Network said.

In Prince George, 24/7 home support services were implemented in August, with expansion of support services hours and duties implemented throughout the region.

“We are doing everything we can to implement services to keep people in their home communities, in their homes, as long as possible,” Bond said. “Home support is such a critical service for that, so certainly for my service network there’s been a large amount of focus on increasing availability of home support across the region.”

To access home support, it starts with communicating the need to a healthcare professional that will do a clinical assessment. A series of questions are asked to determine the level of need and the type of services that are required. Once the assessment is completed then a plan is created and services are put into place.

“Our home-support teams are community health workers who would go into the home and follow the care plan to support the person. I just can’t stress enough how important the work is and it’s not easy work and there’s a lot of it to do," Bond said. "We have incredible teams working across the region, including in Prince George. These teams are an important part of the service here.”

Home support services include personal assistance with the activities of daily living, like mobility, nutrition, getting dressed, bathing, going to the bathroom and grooming.

“We are also trying to increase the flexibility in our home support teams to include things like if there’s a requirement to help keep the place safe and clean, help with laundry of soiled bedding or clothing, and meal preparation,” Bond said.

For more information about home support and how to access it visit https://www.northernhealth.ca/services/home-community-care.