“Our approach isn’t just about covering shifts – it’s about creating the relationships which make our care truly person-centred.”
For Lena Walliman, that statement typifies the approach of Invictus Complex Care. Committed to creating teams which focus on their clients as people, the personal touch the business adopts is proving to be valued by client and staff alike.
“The clinical side is more straightforward – for us, it’s absolutely about the person, and when you’re putting a team in place, if you haven’t got the right approach to doing that, then anything else you do makes no difference,” says Lena, clinical director of Invictus.
“We put a huge amount of effort into matching our clients and their care team, whether that’s in terms of their sense of humour, their interests, whatever common ground they have, we’ll use that to the client’s advantage.
“In care, staff turnover can often be quite quick, but because we are putting the effort in to build a team which works for everyone, our retention rate is high.
“It’s the really little things like that which make a huge difference.”
Having established Bristol-based Invictus only weeks before the pandemic hit in early 2020, Lena, co-founder Holly Leach and their team have quickly made an impact in complex care, covering an area from the Midlands down to the South coast and winning clients on the strength of its ethos.
“A lot of providers say they’re person-centred, but then they put people in who the client has never met before, who might have nothing in common with them,” says Lena, a qualified nurse, who went back to work on the frontline during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“For us, it’s more than getting people to fill shifts. We don’t want our clients to have someone in their home for 24 hours a day who they have nothing in common with. If we have a client who lives on a farm, but we put someone in who doesn’t like animals, even if they have all the skills in the world, it isn’t going to work.
“Our background in nursing and complex care means we have empathy on a deeper level than many providers which are run just as businesses. From the very first telephone interview to assess the clients and their needs, even before the first meeting, we’re already finding out about them so we can match their interests with their team.
“We put ourselves in the shoes of our client, and think what we would want. We want family members feeling comfortable and confident in the team we’ve assembled and the care their loved one is receiving.
“It’s about designing a package which is unique to each client, and involving them in assembling their team. If there is a relationship there, then the process will be as smooth as possible, and is to the benefit of everyone. The feedback we have had tells us we’re doing it in the right way.”
And while the business is in its infancy and growth is rapid, Lena is adamant it will never grow beyond a certain level, so it can be certain of preserving its carefully-crafted culture.
“We’re really keen on slow growth, so we maintain our ethos. I’ve worked in companies before where they grow so quickly that it becomes more about the turnover than the clients, but we want to be known as a quality provider which doesn’t ever compromise on its standards,” says Lena.
“We’ll never get to a size where we lose sight of the finer details, and once you get to be a bigger player, that does start to happen – what we do will always be about our clients.
“There is a huge amount of competition out there but we want to be the ones who make the real difference to people’s lives, who appreciate the value of a truly person-centred approach and see the impact that can have in delivering the highest quality of care.”
