BUSINESS
Keeping Residents Connected and on the Road
Keeping residents connected with their surrounding community and giving them the ability to travel further afield, to experience the world around them during their golden years, is important to Oceania, where the residents’ needs always come first.
SARAH LEWISDAWES FleetPartner's Relationship Manager for Oceania
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ransport offers those in retirement and aged care facilities a lifeline to the outside world they may otherwise not have. Group outings create a connection, not only among residents, but also to the wider community. With 47 villages across the country, Oceania offers a range of Aged Care and Retirement Village Living options for New Zealanders. To keep their residents moving, in 2014, FleetPartners partnered with Oceania to offer a fleet management service for their vehicle fleet. Since then, Oceania have moved to transitioning their fleet to leasing so they can offer their residents safe and compliant vehicles for transport. “FleetPartners take away all the hassle of looking after the fleet of vehicles so that staff at Oceania can focus on what’s truly important, the residents,” explained Sarah Lewis-Dawes, FleetPartner’s Relationship Manager for Oceania. The majority of Oceania’s 120+ vehicles are on a Fully Maintained Operating Lease which means everything is taken care of, including cost certainty,
scheduled servicing, maintenance, repairs, tyres, relief vehicle service and more. “The main benefit of leasing is that the risk element is taken away,” continued Lewis-Dawes. With over 4,000 residents and 2,800 staff nationally, Oceania’s fleet is very important to them because it enables residents to interact with everything inside and outside their village, from taking them to shops outside to outings and day trips. Compliance and safety are paramount for their vehicles transporting their residents, but so is making sure the residents are comfortable. With a changing demographic of residents with greater discretionary income and a want for higher-quality options, aged care and retirement villages can no longer neglect the aesthetic or feel of the services they offer. The fleet at Oceania consists mainly of Mercedes Sprinter vans for the retirement villages, which are used for transporting residents. These vehicles combine the practicality needed with the style and comfort residents deserve. Care vans have hoists installed at the back with
