award honour for dereham carer

A carer from Dereham was honoured at a special celebration event at Fakenham Race Course this week.

Andrea Johnson was runner up for the Gill Chase Award - an annual event to thank carers across Norfolk who have been nominated by their service users and their families for their outstanding work with home care company Extra Hands, which has offices in Horsham St Faith and Heacham.

The Gill Chase Award was started five years ago in memory of a long-standing Extra Hands carer who died suddenly in 2014 aged 68, and a total of 90 staff members were nominated -  the highest total in the five year history of the award.

Andrea Johnson was the finalist from Extra Hands' Horsham St Faith office, and narrowly missed out Gill Chase Award winner Stella Cason, from King's Lynn.

Andrea has been with Extra Hands for just over two and a half years and her nominations said she has a very calm way about her, is always polite and she also pays great attention to detail. 

"Andrea can adapt and adjust to the needs of the day and that she is very understanding," her nomination added.

Andrea said she changed her career from complementary therapist to carer and hasn’t looked back since starting with Extra Hands.

She said she enjoys helping her service users in her ‘patch’ of the Taverham and Drayton area, where she heads each day from her Dereham home.

“I have absolutely lovely service users and really enjoy what I do,” she said.

She added that anyone considering going into the caring profession needed to realise it wasn’t all about drinking tea and chatting.

“You have to be prepared to get involved and hands-on. It can be very hectic, but it is very rewarding” she added.  

"I like doing my utmost to help our service users and make sure they can stay in their homes for as long as possible so they can be stay as independent as possible. That's what my focus is - to look after our service users to the best of my ability. and make sure they are safe."

Hayley Claxton, manager at Extra Hands' Horsham St Faith office, had this to say about Andrea: "This is a carer that everyone would want in their team. She is committed to ensuring that the people they support have a good quality of life.

"She will go that extra mile regularly, escorting their service users to our social events. She has taken the time to really understand people as individuals and she is outstanding in achieving good outcomes for them.

"Extra Hands are very lucky to have Andrea and she was so deserving of her nomination."
Extra Hands' Heacham office was rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission earlier this year.

The company was also the first in the county to offer well-being checks to help reassure families and friends who can’t always be available to help.