Connection is at the heart of care. We are defined by the bonds that link us to our communities. Bonds that came under intense stress throughout covid. A stress that is slowly easing as we work to rebuild our connections. A new fundamental standard has been established protecting the rights of residents to visitors and accompaniment. The new amendment in question builds upon the Health and Social Care Act 2008 and is a seen as a positive development for the sector by many providers.  

However, it will raise challenges around safeguarding and record keeping for residential care providers. Visitors are fantastic, but all activity in a care home needs to be monitored to some extent, and a sudden influx of guests and requests can swamp any team. Fortunately, there is technology available that can help you manage, monitor and promote connections in your community. 

In effect, the new regulation ensures: 

Crucially, this right is now a fundamental standard for the Care Quality Commission. Which means that they can include it in their inspection framework. This is a welcome development for families and care rights activists. Indeed, the opportunity to promote connections is a welcome development for everyone in care. Though care providers need to ensure that this new regulation is implemented safely and securely. 

Care homes welcoming more visitors will increase the strength of connections in their communities. It will also increase the need for protections for their residents. Policies and procedures are essential to safeguarding the people who draw upon their support. These policies and procedures will need to be consented by and applied to all visitors. Providers ensure the safety of their residents by adhering to this process. 

These are challenges that are made more complex when using a paper-based registration system. Visitors sign in and out in one book, which raises privacy concerns by publicly displaying visitor’s personal information. A book that quickly becomes a litany of GDPR pitfalls and unutilised data.

Custr offers a safe, secure and simple solution to these challenges. The iPad based system logs all visitors and contractors. A digital login provides a secure and positive experience upon entry, one that guarantees alignment with the relevant regional and personal standards of your service. You can fully brand your login to provide a modern and welcoming first impression of your home to start all new relationships off on the right foot! 

Staff can also sign in through the system. Set up access control fobs or a smartphone applications so your team can easily check in and out of their shifts. This has the added benefit of giving your managers a fully up to date staff attendance record. One that can be easily evidenced to regulators as part of the new single assessment framework. 

The new regulation is widely welcomed by the social care community because it promotes more visitors to care homes. Custr not only supports and simplifies this process, but it can also be used to encourage it. With Custr it is possible to register guests in advance of them arriving at your care home. This allows for a more seamless and efficient check-in experience, as all their information will be prepopulated when they arrive.  

Additionally, you have the option to send pre-registered guests an invitation email in your branding, containing information on who they will be meeting, details on the time and date of the meeting, directions and a QR code for scanning upon arrival. You can even set up notifications so that your carers are made aware of when a visitor arrives at the home. 

Enhance your care by utilising the abundance of data at your fingertips. The Custr dashboard gives you a comprehensive overview of visitor and staff check-in history. It also provides an overview of your visitor history, fire list and site settings. It allows you to export detailed reports, based on your visitor categories. A useful tool for tracking, analysing and evidencing your visitor information. For multi home providers there is also a global dashboard that enables you manage a centralised staff check-in system while still allowing for customisation so you can set up site-specific requirements and visitor experiences as desired. 

Custr contains a suite of further features for care homes. Up to date fire evacuation lists, document signing immediately saved to your database, a comprehensive staff companion app to keep them informed and feedback capture when checking out of the care home. All of which is manageable, recordable and evidencable from one simple platform. With roles and permissions to make sure that you only give access to this information to who you want, and not just anyone able to pick up the book. 

Digitisation makes things simpler by design. This is an easier bridge to build when dealing with technical processes. When dealing with something as fundamentally human as promoting personal connections between residents and visitors there is an understandable scepticism. With digitisation the gap between intention and application can be significant when improperly pursued. A gap we’ve seen appear with new social care regulations as well. Learn how you can bridge this gap and promote connections with Custr.    

Domiciliary care, also known as home care, is an incredibly personal and community driven business to start. Care lies at the heart of so many people’s lives and the decision to become a provider is as impactful on the lives of your clients as it will be for you. Many people become care providers because of personal experience, either with care themselves or with a loved one. Their drive born from their compassion, and a desire to help improve the services available in their community.  

Of course, it is also a substantial business decision. One that will require thorough forethought and constant attention to become successful. Domiciliary care software, preparing for the relevant care agency regulator, finding the right home care provider insurance, defining your statement of purpose, recruiting and retaining care workers and more are all important aspects to consider. 

Here are some top tips for anyone looking to start their own home care business based on what we have learned during our decade plus years of supporting domiciliary care providers in the UK and Ireland. 

A solid business plan is vital for any successful venture. Conduct extensive research on the local market and competition in the area to determine what services are in demand, what you can provide and what it is reasonable to charge. This will enable you to create a solid business plan and define a deliverable statement of purpose.

Work out your company’s structure, goals, and objectives by creating a business plan. Remember to consider the financial, legal, provider insurance, marketing, and management aspects of the organisation, including potential sources of funding and your target audience. For example, are you targeting a private client base or will you be competing for Local Authority contracts? 

The figures vary greatly when estimating how much it costs to set up a care agency. This is because the factors vary greatly too. You must account for everything from staff costs and equipment to home care provider insurance and software. If you are starting a small home care business in the UK, the consensus is generally between £3,000 to £15,000 to start a care agency. For those with larger ambitions it can increase to £35,000 up to £100,000. 

There’s always a lot of paperwork at the start! You’ll need to obtain home care provider’s insurance, establish policies and procedures, and register your care agency with the relevant regulator. More information can be found on the relevant regulator’s website. 

Based on your market research, create a comprehensive business plan that outlines your services, pricing, and operations. Determine the hours of operations, create job descriptions, and develop a recruitment plan for your employees. There are a number of apps and social media groups to help you with home care recruitment.  

Care provision is a deeply personal experience. People are welcoming you into their homes and asking for help at their most vulnerable. You will need an amazing team of people to help you grow a successful service. The CQC’s latest ‘State of Social Care’ report highlights successful providers’ focus on staff development and retention. How you recruit and retain care workers will have a huge impact on the quality of your care. We advise hiring for culture and compatibility. Providing care requires the right people with the right skills, and it is much easier to learn the latter than the former. 

You will also need to ensure you have the necessary leadership and qualifications. When starting a home care agency many owners are also the registered manager. Of course that begs the questions; what qualifications do I need to start a home care agency? 

The answer varies depending on where you are:

England

QCF Level 5 Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care (Management of Adult Services) 
 
The CQC still accepts the below qualifications, however they are no longer obtainable for those starting a home care agency. 

A Registered Manager’s Award (RMA for short) 

NVQ Level 4 in Leadership and Management for Care Services 
While these qualifications are not mandatory, the CQC will expect you to demonstrate you have the relevant experience, qualifications and skills.

Scotland 

The Scottish Social Services Council accepts a range of qualifications which you can view here.

Wales and Northern Ireland 

The Level 5 Diploma in Leadership for Health and Social Care Services (Adults’ Management) 

It is important to note that recruitment and retention is one of the major challenges in social care currently. While there is a large amount of turnover in social care, many of the people who leave their roles, leave them for another role in care. This shows just how important it is for you to take care of your team. Burnout is a serious condition and a real possibility, and something you could very well face yourself when starting out. It’s important to extend understanding, dignity and purpose to everyone in your service, and not just your clients. An increasingly popular way to promote growth is by facilitating education for your workforce, such as the care certificate in England. 

If you are starting a home care business you will need clients. Community work and marketing are the cornerstones for developing a client base. Your ability to engage with your local community and raise awareness about the service you provide both at local events and online are crucial. Connect with local elderly groups, charities and associations. Utilise their events to spread the word about your service, such as exhibiting or conducting leaflet drops. Word of mouth is huge in social care, so the experience of your first few clients will shape the success of your business.  

There are also national organisations like the Home Care Association and Home and Community Care Ireland. These run many supportive and educational workshops for their members as well as representing their needs on a national stage. 

At the start it will feel like you have a thousand things to do every 20 minutes. Picking the right technology partner with the right home care software is vital. They can help you establish simple clear processes with rostering software and comprehensive record keeping, empowering you to focus on more of the many other things demanding your attention each day. Nourish has supported thousands of home care agencies in streamlining their service; we have more information for effectively implementing technology in home care and case studies of people using our system. 

Determine your payment model and the payment options available for your clients. A key question for everyone when starting a home care business is: will you be accepting Local Authority contracts? 
 

Depending on your area this could be a viable approach to gaining clients, however rates for LA contracts vary based on where you are. The Home Care Association have previously produced a comprehensive examination into the varying rates of commission for home care providers across the UK that can help you understand your context. Finding the right domiciliary care software such as Nourish can help alleviate your billing stresses. 

A quality control program can help you maintain the standard of care you offer, and continually improve your service provision. It is vital this includes feedback from both your clients and carers. Domiciliary care is community based, and you must listen to your whole community to ensure you understand what is going on. Your relevant care agency regulator will provide guidelines, but it is through community engagement you will find the best answers. Answers that will help you shape your statement of purpose as well. The right domiciliary care software can help you build a library of interactions and experiences to shape your quality control. There are also home care software platforms like our partners Altra which offer functionality to enhance your engagement.

Hopefully this article helps illustrate how to set up a home care agency. As you can see, starting a domiciliary care company can be challenging, but by following some of these top tips you could make the process smoother for yourself and your team. As a longstanding home care software supplier, we are here to help you every step of the way. Whether it is with specific functionality like rostering software, or more general advice like connecting you with other providers for guidance on best practice.

We’ve got over a decade of experience working with domiciliary care agencies – our sector-leading home care software can help you to cut down on admin time and provide more quality care to people you support.

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.

“Effective use of digital technology, data and processes can support the delivery of outstanding quality and personalised care and support at the right place and at the right time.”

Ultimately, digitisation is about improving care. The pursuit of this goal lies at the heart of every improvement that digitisation can bring. By saving time and money through digitisation, you can reinvest it in the care your team provides. Improving outcomes for the people who draw upon your service.

Digital care management platforms, such as Nourish Care, can help you to improve your application of the data you are already gathering every day. By examining this data and applying the information it gives you to the continual development of your care. Empowering you to be dynamic, responsive and collaborative in your approach to care provision.

This can be through studying trends that were previously more difficult to recognise. Building case studies over time on specific clients to better personalise their care. Or sharing experiences from different carers with the whole team in easily accessible documents sent directly to each person. There are a wide range of ways to use digital tools to improve the standards of your care.

This benefit is not dependent on spending a lot of money on new technology or hardware. As habits, successes, and even mistakes are all held in the same system, it becomes much easier to track them, learn from them, and adapt your approach.

Of course, it is vital to know where you are starting from. Make sure you record your current practice before making any changes, otherwise you won’t have a record of the improvements you are making!

If you would like to learn more about how Nourish can help you improve your services you can read our case studies on how Quality Home Care made significant savings or how Priory Group improved their focus on outcomes for over 2,300 residents.

“Having good data to understand and plan for the needs of the population (whether at a community level or individual level) means that we can reduce inequalities and improve outcomes for all people.” 

You can change the way you provide care by using data effectively. By monitoring your care, you can gain insights you wouldn’t otherwise get. To ensure effectiveness, it must be balanced with a human approach.

Data security is vital for ensuring the privacy of your team and the people who utilise your care. You must also keep in mind the ethics of data collection. The danger is that when people are reduced to numbers and data points, you start to see them that way.

Co-production offers an effective bulwark against these bad habits. By involving people in the process of shaping their care, and keeping them in control of their own data you empower both the people themselves, and the service they are a part of.

The same rings true for finding the right digital partner. When you work with a supplier who understands your goals, and works with you and your community, you can ensure that together you use data securely and ethically. We have previously discussed the importance of Safe Practise in the What Good Looks Like guide. When considering the health of people in social care both the security of the data and how you apply the information you have gathered are crucial to your success.

We have worked closely with both third party developers and County Councils to develop innovative applications of data in care through our Partnership Programme. The Nourish Partnership Programme (NPP) unites key best-in-class innovators like Camascope for eMAR, Radar for incident management and PainChek for pain management whilst keeping a finger on the pulse for emerging technologies that will have a big impact on the social care sector. 

If you’d like to learn more about the power of data and how we work with providers to help them harness the power at their fingertips you can read our case studies. See how Abney & Baker utilised our Application Programming Interface to improve their service. You can also read about how going digital helped transform Hampshire County Council 16 adult social care services.

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 and 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.

In our second blog we are focussing on the ‘Connect’ category.

“Supporting your workforce means developing a skilled, capable workforce who can confidently identify, recommend and use appropriate technology safely and effectively for people drawing on social care.”

When it comes to supporting your workforce, it’s about trusting them and empowering them to use the digital tools available to them and to those who use your services.

When supporting your workforce it is important to keep in mind that digital literacy is commonplace in today’s society. Almost everyone utilises some form of digital technology each day from Facebook, to Whatsapp, Fitbits, alarms and even banking. We live in a world of digital technology, to the extent we often overlook just how skilled we are with digital tools.

Care Roadshows invited us to take part in a series of panels on Balancing Technology and Human Connection. In Glasgow, Quality Compliance Systems Head of Social Care Content Lindsay Rees discussed the importance of understanding ‘Why’, and how the purpose of digitisation must be understood by all in your organisation.

In spring of last year, in response to Sajid Javid’s comments on digitisation in social care, we examined digital literacy in social care. Our analysis of the Ipsos Mori Polling revealed there is far greater understanding and use of digital tools in social care than was being openly discussed, especially in domiciliary care settings.

Time and again we have seen that the social care workforce is highly capable and adaptable to change. With support to learn new skills and clarity on the benefits of doing so, carers will excel in utilising digital tools in their provision of care.

You can read about the experience so many of our own team have working in care here. Experience that shapes the way we approach digital social care every day.

“A person-centred approach to the design and use of digital technologies can improve people’s quality of life and wellbeing and support independence.”

We believe that the Local Government Association said it best when they defined empowerment as ‘treating people as equal citizens’.

True empowerment comes from partnership, not dictation. Where people, services and systems work together to realise the ambitions we all share for better care. Our ability to understand each other and the challenges we face is much greater when we work together.

Care is based in community, and digitisation should be approached in the same way, as a communal undertaking. This means co-producing care with both the people who will be providing the care, and those who will be utilising it and co-producing your digitisation with partner who works alongside your team to build the most effective solution.

We specialise in working with care providers to create the best digital solution for your service, if you would like to learn more about this process you can see our case study with: Encompass Care or Winserve Care, or reach out to us directly.

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.

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.