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 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

wheelchair access for residents. FleetPartners works with AutoTransform, a third-party fitout provider, who specialise in mobility options for vehicles. The vehicles need to be very accessible for the residents to get in and out of. Vehicles are also sign written individually for each village which helps identify the vehicles for the residents.

These vehicles are such an important aspect of the day-to-day lives of those living at Oceania facilities that there is often quite a fanfare when a new van is acquired.

“Both the residents and staff get very excited when a new vehicle arrives, we’ve seen photos of the new vans with happy residents and balloons, it means a lot to them.”

Sustainability is also very important to Oceania, as part of the company’s commitment to becoming more eco-friendly, they have started to offer some residents access to a pool car which can be booked during the week. Oceania see pool cars as the future for residents and their families.

“It reduces the need for residents to bring their own cars and having to worry about maintenance, fuel, servicing and the rest,” noted Lewis-Dawes.

FleetPartners has further assisted Oceania on their carbon journey and transitioning some vehicles to more sustainable alternatives. This has started with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles for their pool cars and for some managers transitioning to hybrid options.

FleetPartners has been an expert to help Oceania find and source vehicles when they have needed them for all their locations around the country. Offering one point of contact and a personal touch to those it works with has added to the company’s reputation as a trusted service provider.

While providing all Oceania residences with an online landing page full of information about the fleet of vehicles, the lines of communication are always opened with FleetPartners answering any questions any of the facilities might have.

FleetPartners also sponsors their annual conference each year.

“These conferences are important to FleetPartners because it means that Oceania managers and team members can put a face to the name, it’s important to have that familiarity so that we can continue to deliver fleet excellence to Oceania.”

FleetPartners is one of New Zealand’s leading vehicle leasing and fleet management specialists, managing over 25,000 vehicles across the country. FleetPartners has over 3,000 customers and help businesses of all sizes access the vehicles they need to operate their business. For more information, visit www.fleetpartners.co.nz.