People cannot predict when they will need support or advice. An emergency or other unexpected event can easily happen in the middle of the night or on a weekend, when most support services are closed. Since 1995, annecto’s After Hours team have provided non-medical emergency support to our own clients, to other support agencies and to private individuals – receiving on average 35,000 calls for assistance per year from individuals, families and carers.
The team delivered telephone support and an outcall home visit service from 5pm until 9am on weekdays, and 24 hours on weekends and public holidays. The calls are answered and responded to by specialist-trained annecto operators, who answer all calls in the name of the organisation we are contracting to during the scheduled period, and use the organisation’s processes and terminology that their clients are used to.
Over the past year, ten Assessment Response Officers worked from our central office in Footscray, supported by another ten staff in an off-site telephone triage team. Each call is responded to individually, and the team aims to resolve every inquiry and respond to every emergency. After-Hours support could range from assisting a client with home duties, providing a short-term carer, helping someone who has had a fall, or checking up on a person’s health and wellbeing.
After-Hours Coordinator Nick Barta explained that over the past year annecto provided support services to 22 external organisations on top of supporting our own clients. “We make sure we adhere to each organisation’s ownguidelines and ensure that the handover of enquiries from and to those providers to the After-Hours Team is seamless.”
Around-the-clock support – because life doesn’t run like clockwork
