St Helena hospice own a domiciliary care service, franchised by Radfield Home Care. This is run as a separate business to the hospice with its own Operations Manager.
The service is run as an income generation programme and aims to become a sustainable source of profit that can be reinvested into the hospice charity.
Outcomes
A team of trained Care Professionals support people at home, helping them stay healthy for longer. The service is still relatively new but the number of clients and hours of care are steadily growing.
Care Professionals are able to share information about other relevant hospice services with clients, such as bereavement support or palliative and end of life care (if needed).
Facilitators, challenges and advice
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Key facilitators
There are common themes between hospice care and domiciliary care, which means St Helena is ideally placed to provide the service and clients have confidence in the St Helena brand.
The franchise process has been smooth. The Operations Manager has weekly meetings with Radfield who provide models for finance, risk assessment and reporting. They also give support around marketing.
Challenges
As with all new opportunities, the hospice had to consider whether there would be any reputational risk involved. They approached Radfield as a well-established and well respected name in home care.
The team contact clients regularly to ‘check in’ about the service and they ensure that all feedback is acted upon.
They have also had to consider how to mitigate the impact of late or non-payment of bills, for example if a client cannot pay for their care or if payment is delayed due to probate.
Tips and advice
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A substantial amount of capital is needed to buy a franchise so be prepared for 2 or 3 years of investment before you get a return.
A service like this is about long-term sustainability rather than an immediate fix.
Future development
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Once the home care service is established, St Helena would like to integrate it more within hospice services. This might involve upskilling Care Professionals with hospice training or developing a pathway where Care Professionals can progress into hospice care roles.
St Helena would be happy to talk to any hospice considering branching out to domiciliary care. Please contact Gemma Zweck, Commercial Director.
