COVID-19 and your Home Care Services

At Australian Unity, our biggest priority is the health, safety and wellbeing of our customers and our people who care for them.

We're committed to supporting you throughout the COVID-19 crisis and know how vital our services are to your quality of life.

Our team members take their responsibility in protecting our customers very seriously, and we support them to work safely from home and isolate when necessary.

As a result of reduced staff available, it may be necessary to make changes to your services, and you may experience longer than normal wait times when contacting our customer care team.

We appreciate your patience and kindness during this time and will do everything possible to move back to our normal services as quickly as we can.

Quality controls to protect our people and customers

While the situation with COVID-19 is developing rapidly and changing daily, please rest assured that we're actively monitoring and acting on all appropriate advice from government and health authorities, supported by our own Chief Medical Advisor.

Australian Unity has moved quickly to put strong processes in place aimed at preventing cases of COVID-19 that may occur within our workforce from affecting our customers. We are actively identifying, assessing and managing risks relating to our services to try to reduce transmission of the virus.

We're confident our customers can continue to safely use our services during these challenging times. We are making sure our frontline employees (in particular, our care workers and community nurses) are trained, equipped and capable of doing what's needed to:

• Prevent the spread of respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, within the community,
• Ensure compliance with government health regulations and social distancing directives, and
• Amplify existing infection prevention and control procedures and how they apply to COVID-19.

We’re proud to have a vaccinated workforce

At Australian Unity we strongly believe that vaccination against COVID-19 is the best way to protect our vulnerable customers and our people who care for and support them.

That’s why all Australian Unity employees are required to have the COVID-19 vaccination or a valid medical exemption. We are also encouraging all employees to get their booster when eligible.

You also may wish to investigate a COVID-19 vaccination booster for yourself. You may be able to make an appointment with your local doctor, pharmacy or online through a state-run vaccination clinic.

Five protection principles we’re using day-to-day

Our care workers are following five protection principles to ensure that services can be delivered as safely as possible. We are urging customers to follow these principles too.

• Stay home if you’re unwell and notify your branch
• Answer the pre-service screening questions accurately ahead of each visit
• Apply social distancing, wherever possible
• Your care worker will wear PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), including a mask. We ask that you and other people in your home wear a mask too or move to another room where possible.
• Practise good infection control by washing your hands regularly with soap and water

For new customers, we’re adapting our on-boarding procedures based on COVID-19 risk in the local area to ensure a COVID-safe sign-up experience. In locations where risk is rising or high we’ll minimise face to face contact as we complete wellbeing plans, safety checks and on-boarding documentation and ensure our team members wear appropriate PPE aimed at keeping customers and their loved ones safe.

Help protect our team

Ahead of each service visit, our home care team will ask a series of questions to determine whether it’s safe to go ahead with the service.

It’s incredibly important that customers answer these questions accurately ahead of each visit, noting any details that may have changed since our last visit.

You can also assist by calling your local branch to reschedule your services if you or someone in your home:

• Are confirmed as having COVID-19
• Are awaiting COVID-19 test results
• Experiences any symptoms of COVID-19