Each month we will meet someone working in the care sector.

This month we caught up with Jackie Byrne, community customer supervisor of Somerset Care’s community services team based in Taunton.

Q. What are the main duties/responsibilities in your role?

A. My main responsibility is customer service and ensuring that the needs of the customer are met within our Petals dementia service. When we have a new Petals package of care, I meet the customer, their family and other professionals involved to discuss with them how we can support the customer to enable them to stay safe at home. From this I then put a care package in place, continually monitoring to ensure that what we are providing is meeting their changing needs.

Q. What made you want to work in the care sector?

A. When I first applied for Somerset Care I only wanted to do the domestic service but that quickly changed and I got more involved with the personal care side of our services and absolutely loved it. I then moved on to be part of the senior team and then a supervisor. I have thoroughly enjoyed the ten years I have spent working in the care sector.

Q. What do you enjoy most about it?

A. There is no better feeling than leaving somebody with a smile on their face, knowing that even if you have only been with them for half an hour you have made a difference to their day.

Q. What would you change or improve about it?

A. Petals is a specialist service and is invaluable to customers and their families. I would like to see this service recognised as a separate service by adult social care and for it be commissioned in the same way as other care packages. We have customers that have really flourished from receiving our Petals service and have been able to stay in their own homes for much longer.

Q. Tell us about a memorable experience from your career?

A. We held a memory café and one of our Petals customers with very advanced dementia attended with her carer. It was lovely to see her enjoying the old time music – her face lit up and she clearly enjoyed the time she spent there.