Grampians Community Health to take control of Horsham Rural City Council's home support services

The announcement comes after a Council decision in July that it would withdraw from directly providing home and personal support.

Council will cease delivering its funded Home Support Services, leaving Grampians Community Health (GCH) to oversee the provision from the new year.

GCH board chairperson Melissa Morris said the not-for-profit was looking forward to providing support for Horsham residents.

"Grampians Community Health has been providing a range of services to people in Horsham for around 20 years and it is very exciting to be able to add home and personal assistance for people to stay living independently in our community," she said.

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Council chief executive officer Sunil Bhalla said the Commonwealth and state governments approved of Council's nomination of GCH as its preferred provider of the State Home and Community Care and the Commonwealth Home Support programs.

The two programs offer broad support, including domestic and personal care, respite, home maintenance, and meals on wheels, among other initiatives.

"Grampians Community Health met the criteria set by Council to ensure the interests of our clients, families and carers, our staff and the community were protected," Mr Bhalla said.

"Grampians Community Health has similar values to Council's, will ensure equity of services across the municipality, has demonstrated a strong safety system to protect both staff and clients, as well as providing a commitment to quality care."

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Former Horsham Rural City mayor Mark Radford estimated 34 staff would be directly affected by the change, when he pledged clients and carers would be protected throughout the change earlier this year.

At the time, Australian Services Union Branch Executive President Billy King labelled the decision "disappointing".

"This decision will be a significant disruption to staff and aged care residents across the municipality," he said.

"Older people benefit from high-quality services delivered by direct employees of the council."

"When councils outsource in-home aged care services, older people and their families experience a fall in the quality and continuity of care."

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Grampians Community Health CEO Mr Greg Little said the aim was to make the change as seamless as possible.

"From January 1 2021 when people are needing home and community support it is important that the quality and cost doesn't change" said Mr Little.

"Since the opening of its new purpose-built community health centre in Hamilton Street, Horsham in 2018, many of the Grampians Community Health programs and corporate services have been based there."

"Being local assists us to make it easier for the HRCC staff and other qualified direct support workers who want to join Grampians Community Health to continue caring for clients. After all we know that they are very good at their job."

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