The government has released a ‘What Good Looks Like’ (WGLL) guide for Local Authorities and care providers in England. This guide builds on the ‘People at the Heart of Care’ white paper from 2021. The guidance is aimed at individuals who have responsibility for digital transformation. In both local authorities and care provider organisations. It provides an aspirational framework to help them shape the future of digital solutions in social care.

The paper is focused on England. But it offers good practice and practical advice relevant to care providers across the UK and Ireland. We’ve summarised its key points in a series of blogs. To help Nourish users and others in social care learn from the White Paper.

The new WGLL framework comprises 7 success measures divided into three categories. The three sections are Digitise, Connect and Transform.

This guidance builds on the NHS What Good Looks Like framework. It can be applied alongside the What Good Looks Like guidance for nursing. The DHSC page also contains a range best practice guides for digital working, and further supportive resources here.

Our first blog focuses on the three measures contained in the ‘Digitise’ category.

“Your organisation’s leaders fully understand the benefits of digital technology and have the confidence and capability to drive forward digital transformation, sharing and learning from best practice.”

Digitisation is a long journey that starts with a simple decision. The decision to take a step forward into the unfamiliar in pursuit of improving the quality of care you provide and the quality of life for your teams that provide it.

In an ideal world, we would fully understand everything we do before we do it. But that’s not how the world works. Ambition and empathy are the essential starting blocks. The ambition to take on the process of digitisation and the empathy to ensure it is always rooted in the human experiences of the people providing and receiving care. Thereafter, it’s time to find the right digital partner for your organisation.

Our goal is to match our expertise with yours. So that we can produce the best results for your service and the people involved. We know each care provider is as unique as the community they support. Our team is here to ensure your unique community benefits from digitisation.

‘Digital Transformation’ is not a term we are wholly comfortable with at Nourish. We prefer to think of it as digital support, or digital augmentation. We’re here to help improve your service. By working with you to match our expertise in technology with your expertise in providing care. So, we can apply best practices from both perspectives. Producing effective digital solutions while always keeping the human connections at the heart of care.

To learn more about how we work with care providers you can read these case studies: Westmorland Care, Smart Care Homes & Care 4 U 2 Day.

“Your organisation has modern and secure digital infrastructure, and staff have reliable access to comprehensive and up-to-date digital records.”

A good start is half the journey in life, and ‘ensuring smart foundations’ is all about putting your business in a position to succeed from the get go. This means finding a digital partner that understands and appreciates the context of your care. There are a huge variety of factors to consider; geography, infrastructure, digital literacy and many more. Before offering solutions, a good digital partner will work with you to ensure they also understand these factors.

You may begin digitising with a robust knowledge of best security practise, and the reliability of local internet connections. You may not. It is important to work with your team and digital partner to understand what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to get there.

We are happy to talk to prospecting care providers about their experience and concerns regarding digitisation. In case you need more information about security, cloud based storage, or any other aspect of this process, we are happy to help. (Even if you don’t join us in the end)

If you’d like to learn more about digitising with Nourish and our onboarding process you can read these case studies: Leicestershire County Care Ltd, Your Care and Support & Nexus Care Services

“Good data and cyber security means organisations can safely use and share information which can improve care and support for people.”

There is always going to be a risk when centralising information. As data becomes more commonly used across social care the opportunity for it to be mishandled or even abused naturally increases as well.

Education, empathy and proactivity are crucial to ensure your team is confident enough in the system they are using to maintain safe practice as well as being confident enough in their team and leadership to share any breaches they think might have occurred.

When choosing a digital partner, make sure you ask about their approach to data protection and cyber security. An expert digital platform should be able to explain how their system fits into your service simply and securely. The less you know, the more questions you need to ask.

There are also some fantastic resources online like the DSPT toolkit from Digital Care Hub, which WGLL points to directly on their outline.

If you’d like to know more about the importance of cyber security and our approach at Nourish you can read here.

Or if you are new to digital security feel free to contact us for a chat about the buzzwords, the meaning behind them and how they relate to care provision.

Many of our team members have had first-hand experience working on the frontline, we’ve walked in your shoes, faced the challenges you face, and celebrated the victories of providing good care. This wealth of experience has shaped the Nourish Care platform into what it is today and gives us unparalleled insight into the sector and allows us to deliver a digital care records platform that truly makes a difference. 

The care experience in the Nourish team ranges from carers and activity coordinators to registered nurses and registered managers. The importance of having care experience is essential throughout our team and has shaped our team with the introduction of roles such as Clinical Lead and Safety Officer. We also have team members with nursing and care experience including Quality Assurance. In addition, our Customer Success teams truly put the impact and outcomes for people supported by care at the forefront of everything we do. 

Nourish founder and CEO, Nuno Almeida spent time working in care services before the idea of Nourish had been formed. He saw care teams struggling to find time to fit their handwritten notes into their already tremendously busy day and how sometimes issues that needed to be reported slipped the net because there was no opportunity to record those concerns in the moment. He saw how many notes needed to be written to record every care interaction and to prepare for the always-looming CQC inspection. 

Nourish began with the mission to give those receiving care a voice and input on the care they receive and to give the team supporting them time to deliver truly person-centred care. 

“I volunteered with a care home and I was just a Portuguese chap that had a good enough English, able to come on in and help us with baking competitions on a Wednesday for example. When I started spending time in care homes, it became very obvious that care workers were writing a hell of a lot of notes. It is clear that carers genuinely have caring as a vocation but aren’t always confident writing notes and this can really remove motivation or joy out of the job they do. That’s where the idea of Nourish came from.” Nuno Almeida, Nourish founder and CEO.  

There are things you learn while working in care that can only come from that environment. From small details like how much it costs to use agency carers and how the shifts run. To more significant issues such as statistics around falls. And how knowing essential information about a person receiving care immediately can change how a person experiences care. The Nourish team started out their careers in the sector in a variety of different care services and job roles. Which means as a team we have great coverage of the sector. We can and regularly use our experiences to enhance our abilities at Nourish. 

“I have only ever worked in Care and cannot imagine working in another field. I worked as both a care coordinator and a registered manager. Both job roles gave me an insight into the pain points that care providers experience in their day to day. As well as how digital platforms can support you in providing person-centred, safe, quality care.

“I draw upon my experience providing care everyday when supporting my users as a Customer Success Manager. Whether that’s training them on how to fully utilise the rostering and scheduling or supporting managers to run reports from the system in line with their compliance. If you have worked in care you will know the feeling of joy you get at the end of the day knowing you have made a difference in someone’s life. I still get that feeling now knowing I am helping my customers provide an impactful, safe and person-centred service.” – Jessica Atkinson, 10 years’ experience in care, Customer Success Manager at Nourish.

We know the importance of the little things. We know the difference between feeding someone lunch and assisting someone to eat their lunch. The crucial difference between giving someone a choice regarding the care they receive and assigning care based on an assumption. We know the importance of personalising care notes over the same text being copy and pasted. We know because we have experienced it first-hand.  

“Each time I deliver a Nourish training session, people will want to know how a certain feature relates to their sector specifically. By being able to personally draw on a large number of previous experiences across a multitude of care and support sectors, this helps the people being trained to use Nourish more effectively as I ‘get’ what they are needing. This creates a mutual trust pretty quickly and those being trained know that they will get what they need to put Nourish into action in their services.” Jason Hengler, 29 years experience in care, Trainer and Project Manager at Nourish. 

Working in the health and social care sector is a skill that regularly goes underappreciated. The narrative surrounding the sector is often negative and the selfless hard work that goes on largely goes ignored. Many of our team have worked in care and know that it is so much more than its reputation. Health and social care is a rewarding career with a clear career path. It relies on emotional intelligence, the ability to build relationships and spot signs of change. Our experience in care has given us the ability to communicate effectively with and about the people you support. We cherish the first-hand experience in the feeling that comes with delivering great person-centred care.  

Nourish exists to ensure that care teams are given the opportunity to provide the best care they can by reducing administrative burdens, enhancing communication across the whole team and giving carers back time to spend on person-centred care.  

“As a Community Team Manager previously, my journey has been a blend of compassion and adaptation to the digital age. Transferable skills and experiences have enabled me to have a deep understanding and empathy to the needs of my customers and this has ensured that I am able to suit their needs as a Customer Success Manager in a more effective and speedy manner. Working for Nourish has allowed me to tap into my experience within the home care environment. As I have experience as a care coordinator, a carer and a manager, I am able to adapt and tailor my training sessions and support to ensure that the content is relevant for the individual.” Katie Loader, 5 years’ experience in care, Key Customer Success Manager at Nourish.

Because so many of us have worked in care, we know that each service is truly unique in its approach and working ways and that is why Nourish is unique and a leader in the digital social care sector. Nourish is customisable and can be tailored to your care service’s needs entirely to ensure your care service retains what is unique about it.  

“Having been involved in a family run care home from a young age gave me a respect and understanding for the sector like no other. Knowing the pressures, the pain points and the sheer variation of the day to day really helps when thinking ‘is this new feature in the platform going to work in practice‘. The team will often hear me repeating the same thing ‘benefit vs burden’ and that comes from understanding the sector. Here at Nourish, we don’t just create a product, we genuinely aim to improve the lives of the manager, the carer and most of all the person receiving support.” Dan Hollingworth, 10 years experience in care, Product Owner at Nourish. 

“My experience of working in care homes helps me to understand the daily struggles carers face. That everything is documented correctly. That everyone has had their care delivered properly. That medication has been administered at the correct times. That tasks have been completed, all within a particular timescale for multiple clients with different needs. I try to use that experience every day to make sure we deliver a quality product. One that alleviates the stresses that come with being a carer so they can offer great support for their clients.” Curtis Cridland, 5 years experience in care, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Nourish.

Find out more about how Nourish can enhance the care you provide by booking a personalised demo with our team. 

eRostering (also written e-Rostering) is a term, popularised by the NHS, to describe the use of electronic rostering or rota scheduling systems for care. The scope of such an e-Rostering system encompasses management information about shift patterns, annual leave, sickness absence, staff skill mix, appointment/task details and locations of both appointments and each member of staff at any one time.

Holding all this data in one place, rotas can be created more efficiently than ever before. To do this, skills and availability are matched to appointment requirements.  Consequently, electronic rostering improves both efficiency and quality of care.

e-Rostering is rapidly replacing traditional approaches to rostering throughout social care. As care providers are challenged to achieve higher standards of care with fewer staff and tighter budgets, many look to systems improvements to reach elevated efficiency targets.

Finding the right e-rostering platform for your service can transform your processes. We have helped care providers of all shapes and sizes reduce costs, improve efficiency and focus on outcomes.

e-Rostering brings together previously disparate data sources, such as appointment scheduling, tracking, timesheet and invoicing data and removes the need to manually copy this from one system to another and match to individuals in each. Centralising and consolidating data in this way, vastly improves accuracy and processing times.

eRostering systems, such as Nourish, go beyond simple consolidation, to automate data processing and reporting requirements.  Consequently, it’s possible to produce accurate and professional invoices (taking travel time, mileage and exact call time into account) at the touch of a button.

Efficiency improvements like this have enabled organisations to save money, simplify processes and improve the quality of the care they provide. You can read more about how Nourish works with care providers in our case studies.

The CQC recognises the role of digital record systems in providing good quality care. With the new single assessment framework the CQC will increasingly expect a good provider to comply with the Data Security and Protection Toolkit (DSPT) or equivalent, as a minimum. This also applies where you use a combination of digital and paper record systems.

Digitisation has the power to improve care when applied appropriately. At Nourish we have years of experience working with providers of all shapes and sizes and supporting them on their digital journey.

If the above points resonate with you and you’d like to find out more about CarePlanner as an eRostering solution for your care agency, feel free to contact us directly here.