Home Instead (Newcastle Upon Tyne)

I am the owner and the registered Care Manager for Home Instead Senior Care Newcastle upon Tyne. The company specialises in providing care for older people in their own homes. I have had many years of experience having spent 30 years as a nurse with the NHS.

‘‘Having worked as a nurse I fully understand what a positive impact the right sort of care can make to a person’s life. Our service allows people to remain in their own homes, which is where most people wish to remain. Our care looks after the individual’s physical as well as emotional needs, providing companionship, interaction and stimulation and this is exactly what our elderly community needs. Our care is tailored to the needs of each individual and we can make a real difference to the quality of life of not only our clients, but their families too.”

Home Instead services include personal care such as assistance with bathing, dressing, eating and medications; home help covering all aspects of day-to-day housework, shopping, meal preparation and household duties plus companionship services from escorting clients to appointments through to simple conversation and good company.

Our Caregivers are chosen for their caring respectful approach along with their dependability and willingness to match their valuable life experience with the excellent training Home Instead Senior Care has to offer. We believe in ‘care for the Caregivers’ and that investment in their professional and personal resources is also an investment in the kind of quality service we aim to deliver. We aspire to be the "employer of choice" for anyone seeking to build a career in care in Newcastle upon Tyne or hoping to give something back by committing to a job in care.

The company is part of a national network recognized as one of the UK’s leading in home care. Their philosophy is simple, to provide a service which will enable older people to live independently in their own homes for as long as possible while improving their quality of life.

In my current role, I am involved on a day to day basis with the running of the business and in particular the recruitment of our CAREGivers. I am acutely aware that the quality of the people you employ are crucial to the service you provide. We offer the best service to our clients this means we need to employ the best people. We recruit and train our own. For each CAREGiver we go through a lengthy process, we need to ensure they all need to have the right character traits. We can and do our own training in small groups we need to ensure our CAREGivers have the knowledge to complement their caring nature. We need their employment history and all have full enhanced disclosure clearance. All our CAREGivers need to have six references three personal and three professional. The recruitment process can be over a number of weeks but for good reason, we need the right people. Of course, everyone has different skills, abilities and personalities therefore we match our CAREGivers with our clients. However, I can confidently say that because we only employ the ‘right’ people I would send every CAREGiver we employ to my own parents.

Sharon started her career in nursing over 30 years ago where she worked as a sister in A&E and as a community nurse in the local area.

Sharon is still a registered nurse and supports our team in the community and is our in house trainer for the many developmental courses we run such as Dementia Training, End of Life and medication training