Grampians Region Foot Care Program

The Victorian Home and Community Care program manual 2013 clearly outlines the role of Community Support Workers in the delivery of personal care support.  The personal care section of the manual commences on Page 117 and concludes on Page 130.  The provision of basic foot, skin and nail care services by a Community Support Worker can only be undertaken “following the completion of specific competency units in addition to the relevant personal care and first aid competencies and non-transferable skills training (P119).

Completion of the unit CHCICS306B Provide basic foot, skin and nail care “will enable community care workers to undertake HACC funded foot, skin and nail care as long as this is done in accordance with the HACC Personal Care Policy relating to people with unstable health and/or complex care needs” (Page 128).  Where a health professional is delegating personal care activities to a community care worker (including foot care) it is important that the community care worker is given person-specific training in the personal care to be provided – this means training that is relevant only to that person, in the situation (Page129).

The unit CHCICS306B is provided in Victorian by Chisholm University for the HACC program – Chisholm are willing to offer training as requested provided there is sufficient demand.  Chisholm training can be accessed through: Chisholm HACC_training 

In the Grampians Region:

Training has been provided in the Northern Grampians Shire by their Foot Care Project and in Ballarat, Golden Plains Shire and Pyrenees Shire by the Ballarat Project.  Further training has been provided by West Wimmera Health Service (WHY Program) in the Shires of West Wimmera, Hindmarsh and Yarriambiack and in Horsham Rural City Council by a private podiatrist.  Training is yet to be provided to Ararat Rural City Council, Moorabool and Hepburn Shires – this will be completed in 2015.    This training has been delivered by podiatrists and primarily aimed at enabling the community support worker to be more skilled in observing, monitoring and reporting any foot care concerns that they identify.  The training is intended to skill workers to understand the mechanics of feet, what a healthy foot should look like, some common foot conditions and what to report to their supervisor for follow up and potential podiatrist/health professional referral.  A number of community support workers have already completed the appropriate Chisholm training to enable them to provide basic foot, skin and nail services – these services will only be offered where the client has had a podiatrist/health professional assessment and they have received client-specific training.

To learn more about the Northern Grampians Foot Care Project and the Ballarat Foot Care Project just click on the link.

The commencement of these two projects has led to the development of two specific tools for regional use:

   Sample Screening Tool for use by Community Support Workers when providing personal care to clients (Northern Grampians have developed their own screening tool)

   Sample Podiatrist Referral Tool for use by podiatrists when referring to HACC funded personal care providers for foot care support

Within the Ballarat Foot Care Project there were two evaluation tools developed to gauge pre and post education data:

  Sample PreTraining Quiz (Northern Grampians have developed their own evaluation tool)

  Sample Post Training Quiz (Northern Grampians have developed their own evaluation tool)

To support HACC funded personal care providers implement foot care into their organisation a sample referral and implementation process document was developed:

   Sample Referral and Implementation Process (Northern Grampians and Ballarat have developed their own processes)

Within Grampians Region there is an expectation that all referrals will be made via secure electronic systems such as ConnectingCare or RIMS.  Referrals and any client information must be sent by secure systems and fax/email are not acceptable processes to use.  To assist with organisation processes all agencies are encouraged to use the following:

   Outcome of Assessment tool for use by providers when advising the referring party of the outcomes of the requested assessment (this can be sent via ConnectingCare/RIMS)

   Service provider home safety checklist  Section One should be completed before a home visit and Section Two should be completed at the home visit.  As a courtesy to other service providers a copy should be sent with all referrals (completed Section One at the least).

A final project report should be available in 2015 – if you would like any more details on this program please contact Robyn Fletcher (Grampians Region HACC Project Worker) on 0418 309 849