Silver Chain Group comprises of Silver Chain in Western Australia, New South Wales and Queensland and Royal District Nursing Service (RDNS) in South Australia. Together, we are one of the largest in-home health and care providers in Australia.
Welcome to our second digital annual report which truly captures what a great year it has been for the organisation. Across Silver Chain Group, there have been many significant achievements, all in aid of our relentless pursuit to make a difference to the health and wellbeing of Australians.
Silver Chain Group has gained momentum and impact as a national leader of influence in the provision of community based health and aged care services. This success has been built on the excellent foundations and strengths of what we do well in our service delivery and underpinned by how we do it – the strong values and culture for which we are renowned.
Ageing Well refers to the way we want to think about ageing, including the way we design and provide our services. We want to maximise our impact on individuals, the community and care system by delivering high value services and contributing to national policy development.
The past year has been an exciting one for Silver Chain Group. Across the nation we continue to strive to grow and provide more innovative care offerings to maximise the benefit to our clients, their community, and relieve demand pressures on hospitals and other facilities.
Over the past year, Home Support – the largest division of Silver Chain Group, has been preparing staff for the introduction of Consumer Directed Care, which gives clients choice and flexibility around the services they receive and who providers those services.
Country Services has bedded down a new model, laying the foundations for a sustainable business that is prepared for growth and will continue to help increase access to community and health services in rural and remote areas of Western Australia.
Providing quality care so people can stay at home is at the core of what Silver Chain Group does and to support and develop our people in doing this, and to make the organisation a great place to work, we have undertaken a number of initiatives over the last year.
The Customer Centres play a key role in supporting the organisation nationally to ensure the best possible client outcomes. We have two centres, one in Perth and another in Adelaide that operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, supporting our clients, providers and referrers.
During the past financial year, Silver Chain Alarms has helped more than 4,700 clients to remain living independently in their own home or residing in a retirement village.
The Silver Chain Group believes that technology plays an important role in improving client outcomes and increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of staff. We also see many opportunities for technology to drive innovation in our sector.
Two more organisations have joined EOS on the ComCare journey this year – ACH Group from South Australia and Amarna Living from West Australia. We now have 21 organisations using ComCare and collectively have more than 7,000 ComCare users.
Amidst a challenging external climate full of reform and shrinking funding for Silver Chain Group’s Registered Training Organisation, YourLife Health & Learning Inc, we continued to deliver high quality training to the general public as well as our staff.
We have continued to receive an overwhelming amount of support from the communities in which we provide services. More than $3 million was donated to Silver Chain and RDNS SA in the last financial year.
Silver Chain took part in a ground breaking Teleheath pilot in Geraldton, Western Australia, to help improve rural access to healthcare by delivering services in the home using technology supported by the National Broadband Network.
