Just over three weeks from taking the reins at Fronditha Care, CEO Faye Spiteri Tsolakis, has made vital inroads in recalibrating the fortunes of the organisation. With a focus on ensuring sustainability and an eye to future growth she launched a 90-day transformation plan. In collaboration with the Board of Directors and Executive team she is progressing a longer-term strategy for framing the way forward to turnaround the business and realign operational plans to sustain success into the future.
Spiteri Tsolakis said: “Fronditha Care is embarking on development of 20-year action plan, to be informed by community vision and aspiration to shape the future of the organisation and its service delivery: securing financial viability and sustainability whilst maintaining the highest standards of clinical care and care oversight.”
Fronditha Care posted a deficit of $6.7M for the 2019/2020 Financial Year and by December 2020 that had reached $10M with unabated losses of $23,000 per day. Faye Spiteri Tsolakis noted it was critical to take immediate action to stem the bleed and review the entire organisation’s operations to look for efficiencies. This included a review of workforce costs alongside all other expenditure.
The first stage of the change process began with an organisational restructure at a corporate level took effect on Monday 22 February 2021. Spiteri Tsolakis said: “This decision was not taken lightly but it was important to review how we function as a corporate support hub. Importantly, we made a deliberate decision to lessen the impact on service delivery and stayed true to our service promise with no reduction in numbers of staff across community or residential services.”
Spiteri Tsolakis continued: “In consultation with Residential Managers we reviewed our master rosters across all facilities and adjusted these with regard to the specific needs of each facility. The Executive team and I have held townhall meetings with staff at each facility and worked with their respective Union representatives to ensure transparency in the process. Further, as we greatly value the skill and capacity of our current staff and do not want to lose them, we offered real opportunity for those whose hours might be impacted to take up work in Community Services, which is a rapidly growing part of our business and provides critical service to the community.”
Changes, which will take effect from early March 2021 and reflect what was in the best interests of each facility and the care needs their residents.
Meetings are being hosted this week with families and representatives of residents at each facility to discuss the changes and work through any ongoing concerns about care, so these too can be addressed.
In concluding remarks Spiteri Tsolakis said: “Change is oftentimes hard to accept but it’s a constant in life and we need to rise to our responsibilities and ensure Fronditha Care gets through this difficult time to become a bigger and better organisation.
The Board, Executive and I have accepted the challenges we face head on because we know it is incumbent on us to be the agents of change that will see the organisation thrive once more. I want to reassure the community that we will continue to provide the highest standards of clinical care – as that is the reason for our being. We will also continue to support the health, safety and wellbeing of our staff because they are the backbone of Fronditha Care. In tandem we are reframing our financial performance and have taken this tough course of action now to ensure we are here in service of the community for at least another 44 years.”
