Jenny Summerton takes on top residential care role at HammondCare

Jenny Summerton started her career in diagnostic biology, working in a public health setting across microbiology, serology and virology before a loved one’s dementia diagnosis inspired her to move to nursing and aged care.

It was while working in an Adelaide care facility that Ms Summerton first came into contact with Dementia Support Australia, later taking a consultancy job with the organisation and rising to become its national program manager.

Now, Ms Summerton has taken over the role of executive general manager for HammondCare’s residential care team, which will see her overseeing 18 dementia care villages and homes across three states.

Aged Care Insite editor Stefanie Schultz sat down with Ms Summerton to talk specialised dementia care, sector reform and the challenges facing the sector today.

Q: 2025 is a difficult time to come into a role like yours, what are some of your key priorities heading towards July 1?

A: 2025 is indeed a period of immense change in aged care [...] but here at HammondCare one of our key priorities is ensuring that we have a really strong workforce model – strengthening our operations through clinical and business performance, and supporting our teams really effectively – that is able to help us deliver some really great high-care needs, and high-quality care for our residents.”

“Also, preparing for the regulatory changes that are coming. Compliance is not just a tick box. It's really about embedding practises and improving resident outcomes.

“As a leader in complex dementia care and palliative care, HammondCare is really focusing on expanding and refining our models to make sure that they’re evolving to meet the care requirements that are being introduced, but also the care needs of the residents that we are seeing coming in as well.”

Q: Dementia is one of the Australia’s most prominent health issues. With an ageing population and dementia diagnoses on the rise, what is your vision for the future of dementia care?

A: There's a few things that we need to look at but definitely taking a proactive rather than a reactive approach is the future for dementia. You can’t walk past early intervention and diagnosis, and putting in supports to help people live longer and healthier at home.

“Another key area is workforce training because we need to ensure that our aged care workers understand what dementia is, how it can affect individuals, [...] and make sure that they’re equipped with the skills to be able to provide quality dementia care. [Training them] to understand what causes reaction, what causes escalation, and how to implement those non-pharmacological interventions early to stop people from increasing and escalating to a 10 out of 10.

“Lastly, I can’t really go past dementia-specific environments. Small scale home-like models, which is exactly what we do here at HammondCare, are proven to improve the quality of life of people living with dementia.

“These models also help to reduce distress as they are stimulating but also enabling; the best thing is that they’re familiar and they’re small and they help people to navigate their environment.

“Continuing to look at environment and how that impacts residents is really important into the future.”

Q: What is your biggest piece of advice for providers, managers and care workers when it comes to delivering the best dementia care possible?

A: Understanding, because if you understand the person you understand their diagnosis, and then you understand what can cause someone to escalate.

“If you don’t have the understanding, knowledge and the tools to do that, it makes it really hard.

“One of the things that we can do is to invest in our people in the front line, to give them the tools to be confident that they can support people living with dementia.”

Q: Aged care providers are under pressure to be increasingly agile in their adoption of new reforms and technology. How do you balance this need to be flexible with the day-to-day commitment of quality care?

A: Balancing immediate operational demands with long term strategic goals requires a really strong team, clear priorities and an agile and adaptive mindset.

“At HammondCare we are really focusing on empowering our residential care managers, making sure that they’re given the tools to be autonomous and lead their team effectively, so that organisation leaders can focus on building that sustainable future.

“Also, investing in our leadership development because the agility and adaptability that we need means our leaders have to be equipped to drive both operational excellence and support that long-term transformation.

“There is so much happening in the sector at the moment and I really do think that while we navigate the pressures that might come in the moment, we’re always working towards a stronger and more innovative aged care model and never losing sight of the people that we serve, making sure that they stay at the centre.

“Any decision that we do make is made by measuring how we can get a better outcome for our residents, and if we keep that front of our mind I think it helps us to work out some of those other balances as well.”

Q: What does good leadership look like in this sector, this year and into the future?

A: Three words; vision, adaptability and connection.

“Really leading with purpose; ensuring that decisions are centred around improving the lives of the residents and the people that we serve.

“Being able to anticipate the changes that might come in the sector, positioning yourself ahead of the curve and thinking about how to put that into practise in our care homes.

“The best leaders don’t have all the answers [...] but we need to create work environments that make our staff feel safe, valued and heard.

“And, lastly, maintaining a resident-first approach, no matter how complex the industry becomes. Our residents’ wellbeing must always remain at the heart of everything that we do within aged care.”