Care Comes Full Circle

Filed in Recent News by November 30, 2016

STRATHEARN Aged Care will become part of HammondCare on December 8.

Approximately ten weeks ago the board of Strathearn actively sought to become part of a larger organisation to help their local services grow.

The new development reflects a full circle relationship, whereby the Dangar family who were the owners of the racehorse Peter Pan significantly contributed funds to begin HammondCare in 1932 along with another local family the White’s of Belltrees.

Dr Stephen Judd, chief executive of HammondCare was surprised to read the story Homes of Hope on scone.com.au when it was published in September and said it was now a great full circle story.

“I just think it is amazing that took place in 1935 and now in 2016 we are able to return the favour to help this organisation grow and thrive,” said Dr Judd.

Dr Stephen Judd, chief executive of HammondCare, Matthew Downie, chief executive officer of Strathearn and Gordon Halliday, chair of the Strathearn board at the Stafford Street facility yesterday.

Dr Stephen Judd, chief executive of HammondCare, Matthew Downie, chief executive officer of Strathearn and Gordon Halliday, chair of the Strathearn board at the Stafford Street facility yesterday.

Matthew Downie, chief executive officer of Strathearn said they had been working with HammondCare for some time and they were a natural fit.

“If we are looking to be able to grow and provide more services to the community we need to look at how we can deliver on that and trying to do it alone is not that easy, we’ve had to rely on a lot of external consultants which is costly compared to when you are part of a bigger organisation and you can draw those skills from elsewhere,” Matthew Downie said.

“In the not-for-profit space HammondCare are more focused on the residents and clients as opposed to the bottom line that some others pursue, that coupled with their well-recognised profile, experience, expertise within the industry is something we saw as mutually beneficial model,” he said.

“They’ve already been providing us with support to date and providing key people to support our clinical team and our staff have visited their other facilities for training, development and the opportunity to see how different facilities are run,” he said.

Dr Stephen Judd said HammondCare said the services and employment at Strathearn will increase not decrease.

“The question staff have been concerned about it ‘will we keep our jobs?’ and the answer is ‘yes you do’ and we want to create more jobs and more opportunities for staff,” said Dr Judd.

“There may be one or two admin impacted because we won’t have two sets of accounts and two sets of payroll, but we will look to offer those staff other positions in the organisation,” he said.

“We are looking at providing more home care in addition to the current residential care as soon as next year and we’re interested in supporting those people who want to stay at home rather than being prematurely admitted into residential aged care, it’s not an either or, but additional services,” he said.

“For a successful aged care village you really need to grow quickly, not slowly and we can definitely help with that and I’m really enthusiastic about developing the services at Strathearn House and Stafford Street as well,” said Dr Stephen Judd.

Strathearn will retain its name, will remain a company limited by guarantee and will become a subsidiary of HammondCare.

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