Case study transcript - Georgina Kennedy

Janette Pollock
Full-time Carer

“Well, mum was great up until she was 85. She was very active, loved doing gardening, always cleaning, very spic ‘n’ span. She was always into music and a great dancer when she was younger.

When my mum was 85 she had a bad accident, she broke her hip and her wrist, she did really well in recovering. She then had another accident and she fell and broke her knee, so when she broke her knee we though ‘mum will never ever walk up the stairs again’ but with mum being the fighter that she is, she started walking up the stairs again. So she got herself really ‘back-on-her-feet’ as we would say. But she now walks with a Zimmer, her walking is limited.”

Narrator

“Full-time carer Janette received help from social services to help overcome 91-year-old Georgina’s mobility problems and personal care needs, however it was not without its difficulties.”

Janette Pollock

“My mum received a mixture of care from social work and from agencies. We’ve had some really great carers and a mixed bag of carers. One of the problems I found was that sometimes their wasn’t continuity and if one of our carers was off we’d have a different person maybe every night or every morning so we didn’t get continuity and we found that, not so much, well a mixture of myself and my mother, found this a bit off-putting. “

Narrator

“Self Directed Support offered Janette and Georgina the consistency of care that they both wanted.”

Janette Pollock

“You can use Self Directed Support to employ an employee yourself rather than an agency staff or a social work staff. You actually employ the person yourself. I employ a PA to look after my mum. We have a lovely person in Sharon and Sharon has a real empathy for my mother and I think Sharon and my mum get on really well. So it’s worked for us.

Sharon SURNAME_TO_BE_GIVEN

“I’ve been doing this job since May last year and I’ve been working with Georgina and Janette. I am here 5 days a week for four weeks at a time until Georgina goes into respite for 2 weeks.

Every morning I’ll come in and help Georgina clean her teeth and wash her face and next thing we’ll do, I’ll freshen her up, have a wash, help her put her clothes on and brush her hair and make her breakfast as well and she’ll have her tea and toast. I know the family and I get to know Georgina really well and know what she likes, doesn’t like and know what she can and can’t do and I get to know Janette, her daughter, as well and it makes it a lot easier and relaxed and comfortable.”

Janette Pollock

“Yeah, so we’d like to recommend Self Directed Support to anyone who would like to employ their own PA because of the great advantages we’ve had in Sharon. She’s been a great PA and we’d recommend anyone to try it.”