The Adult Social Care Transformation Fund is supporting the Government aim of having all (but at least 80%) of CQC registered adult social care providers to use digital care records by March 2024. Registered care providers are now able to apply for grant funding from their local Integrated Care System (ICS) which will pay for 50% of their annual license fee for a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system such as Nourish. Find out more about the funding here. 

Nourish are working in partnership with the 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) across England, to support you with accessing this funding and to make the transition from paper to digital as smooth and easy as possible.    

In February there are a number of events across the country where ICS’ will provide more information about the funding and how to access it. Nourish will also be attending these events so you can find out more about digital care planning.

To give all care services in the West Midlands more information about the funding, Black Country ICS and Birmingham and Solihull ICS are hosting the event ‘Digitising Social Care Information and Marketplace’ on Thursday 2nd February, 10am – 4pm, at Bescot Stadium, Walsall. 

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. Digital care planning platforms, including ourselves at Nourish, will also be exhibiting where we can show you our platform, discuss what going digital means and all the benefits that come with going digital.  

Find out more and register for the event here. 

To get you started on your digital journey, Hampshire Care Association are hosting the event ‘All Things Digital The One Stop Shop’ on Wednesday 8th February, 9.30am – 2pm, at the Kings Community Church in Hedge End. Digital care planning platforms, including ourselves at Nourish, will also be exhibiting where we can show you our platform and discuss all the benefits that come with going digital. 

Find out more and book your place now.

To give all care services in Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West more information about the funding, the ICS are hosting an online webinar on Wednesday 8th February 2023. 

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. We will also give a demonstration of the Nourish platform, showing what going digital means and all the benefits that come with being digital. Nourish will be on the webinar between 16.20 and 16.50. 

Find out more and register for the event here

To give all care services in Lincolnshire more information about the funding, the ICS are hosting an online webinar on Wednesday 9th February 2023, 10am – 11am. 

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. We will give a demonstration of our platform showing what going digital means and all the benefits that come with being digital.   

Register for the event by emailing denise.tack@nourishcare.co.uk 

We are working in partnership with South West London ICS and South East London ICS, to support care providers in their remit with accessing this funding and to make the transition from paper to digital as smooth and easy as possible.     

The ICS’s are hosting the event ‘Digitising Social Care Engagement‘ for South London care services on Wednesday 15th February 2023, 10am – 5pm, at Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre in London.  

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. Digital care planning platforms, including ourselves at Nourish, will also be exhibiting and demoing. Our team can show you our platform, discuss what going digital means and outline all the benefits that come with going digital.   

Register for the event here.   

‘The Adult Social Care Transformation Fund is supporting the Government aim of having all (but at least 80%) of CQC registered adult social care providers to use digital care records by March 2024. Registered care providers are now able to apply for grant funding from their local Integrated Care System (ICS) which will pay for 50% of their annual license fee for a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system such as Nourish. Find out more about the funding here. 

Nourish are working in partnership with the 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS) across England, to support you with accessing this funding and to make the transition from paper to digital as smooth and easy as possible    

In January there are a number events across the country where ICS’s will provide more information about the funding and how to access it. Nourish will also be attending these events so you can find out more about digital care planning.

To give all care services in Dorset more information about the funding, the Integrated Care System, Dorset ICS are hosting the event ‘Spotlight on Digital Shared Care Records’ on Tuesday 17th January 2023, 9.30am – 1.00pm, at Hamworthy Club, Magna Road, Wimborne, England, BH21 3AP. 

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. Digital care planning platforms, including ourselves at Nourish, will also be exhibiting where we can show you our platform, discuss what going digital means and all the benefits that come with being digital.  

Reserve your place at the event here. 

To give all care services in the Black Country more information about the funding, the Integrated Care System, Black Country ICS are hosting online webinars on Wednesday 18th January, 3pm – 3.30pm and Tuesday 31st January, 2pm – 2.30pm.  

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. We will also give a demonstration of our digital care planning platform Nourish, showing what going digital means and all the benefits that come with being digital.  

There’s no need to book, access the webinar links here.  

On 19th January 1pm – 2pm, Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICS are hosting an online webinar about the funding that is available that you can use to digitalise your care records and for a nurse call data system. 

This free webinar will give an overview of the funding available as well as showcase the capabilities of Nourish Care, a digital care planning tool assured by the national programme, and NurseCall data system, NexusCare. Both Nourish Care and NexusCare can integrate with each other.

You can book onto the webinar here.  

To give all care services in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough more information about the funding, the Integrated Care System, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ICS are hosting an online webinar on Wednesday 25th January 2023, 12pm – 2pm.   

You’ll be able to find out more about the funding and how you can digitalise your care records. Digital care planning platforms, including ourselves at Nourish, will also give demonstrations of our platforms showing what going digital means and all the benefits that come with being digital. 

To reserve your place at the webinar please email ASC.Reform@cambridgeshire.gov.uk.

On Wednesday 23rd November 2022, we were proud to host the webinar ‘What Digital Data Means for the Future of Falls Prevention’ alongside the NCF and the University of Nottingham. You can view a recording of this webinar on this page. 

People who live in care homes have an increased risk of falling. Falls are common, harmful, costly, and difficult to prevent. This joint webinar covered how can we be effective and learn quickly from data insights surrounding falls prevention, what research has been done, what the future of falls prevention could look like and the impact digital data can make in the prevention of falls. 

The Public Health Outcomes Framework (PHOF) reported that in 2017 to 2018 there were around 220,160 emergency hospital admissions related to falls among patients aged 65 and over, with around 146,665 (66.6%) of these patients aged 80 and over.  

This webinar was led by Nourish’s Chief Product Officer Jeremy Baldwin, and NCF’s Digital Transformation Lead Adam Hunt. Dr Fran Allen, Research Fellow from the University of Nottingham also shared insights about the Action Falls programme (formally GtACH) which trains and supports care home staff to identify the reasons why residents fall and then guides them to complete actions to reduce falls. In a large multicentre randomised controlled trial called the FinCH trial, the Action Falls Programme was cost-effective and reduced falls by 43%. 

You will take away from this webinar recording:  

NCF is the membership organisation for not-for-profit organisations in the care and support sector. NCF members collectively deliver more than £2.3 billion of social care support to over 218,000 people in 8,200 care and support settings. Employing more than 117,000 colleagues and 14,000 volunteers. 

Adam joined NCF in January 2022 as one of our Digital Transformation Leads. Adam has previously worked in the role of Digital and Technology lead, for a large not-for-profit care provider alongside promoting and supporting the adoption of assistive and enabling technology. 

Adam has also managed day and community services, co-produced person-centred support in registered settings and delivered capacity building projects for small-medium sized charities. Adam brings his passion for new and innovative tech, user-centred design and co-production to this role and wants to see a future where people who receive care are at the heart of tech solutions, enabling more choice and control about the life they choose to live.  

Dr Fran Allen is a Chartered Physiotherapist and Research Fellow in the Centre for Rehabilitation and Ageing Research within the University of Nottingham Medical School. Following a clinical career specialising community rehabilitation and falls prevention, Fran completed her PhD at the University of Warwick before moving to the University of Nottingham to work as part of the Falls in Care Homes Study (FinCH) team. Fran has a special interest in falls prevention and is currently coordinating the National FinCH Implementation study and leading work looking at falls prevention in hospice care.   

Nourish is a flexible digital care planning platform. With features including reporting, analytics, custom interactions and personalised timelines, the circle of care is continually informed, giving more time for person-centred care. Working with 3,500 services within a variety of care settings, Nourish is also an NHS Transformation Directorate Assured Supplier. 

Jeremy is Chief Product Officer at Nourish, responsible for the roadmap and developing relationships with clinical and care experts to champion best practice standards for care.  Jeremy has extensive experience in delivering transformative digital products and services in a variety of sectors. At Nourish, he focuses on how digital and data can improve the everyday challenges of providing health and social care and help transform practice across the sector as a whole.

On 12th and 13th October, we will be exhibiting at The Care Show at the NEC in Birmingham. The Care Show is free to attend for all care providers. Registration can be made here. The Care Show focuses on offering outcomes and solutions for social care providers, providing over 80 hours of sessions with experts.  

We’re thrilled to be attending the show and will be on Stand H82. We would love to meet you and show you our digital care planning platform and demonstrate how Nourish could be the perfect solution for you.  

Nourish founder & CEO Nuno Almeida will be on a panel titled ‘Full of Care, Free of Paper – The Digital Revolution’ with Samantha Crawley from Excelcare as chair, Zoe Fry from The Outstanding Society and Katie Thorn from Digital Social Care. This talk will be in The Outstanding Society’s Learning Lounge, located 3.15pm on Day 1 of the show. The panel will cover social care providers moving towards a digital way of working using innovative technology such as Nourish.  

With most providers now using digital tools for their care records, Nuno Almeida, will share examples of how digital is supporting an integrated view of each person drawing on care and support, which is creating opportunities for improving care quality, for care providers, commissioners and regulators – but most importantly, a smoother experience for the person and their family.

Join Nuno in the Technology Theatre from 1.45pm on day 1 of the Care Show for his thought-provoking talk on the impact of digital on care quality.

The Outstanding Society have partnered with The Care Show to provide a Learning Lounge for attendees, covering topics such as the CQC KLOEs, recruitment and moving to a digital way of working.  

You can find out more about The Learning Lounge here.  

The Outstanding Society was set up by Camilla Thimble, who owned a care home in Dorset that was rated ‘Outstanding’ by CQC. Linking with other Outstanding rated homes, The Outstanding Society was formed to promote sharing best practice within adult social care throughout England, assisting other care services in achieving an Outstanding rating.  

At Nourish, we sponsor The Outstanding Society who share our vision for empowering care teams and promoting best practise among care providers.  

You can find out more about Nourish’s partnership with The Outstanding Society here.  

Nuno Almeida, Founder and CEO of Nourish, hosted an interview with Martin Green, the Chief Executive of Care England at the LaingBuisson’s annual Social Care Conference. A flagship annual gathering for leaders of the sector, in Southbank, London last month.  

Against a backdrop of pessimism and challenges, Nuno framed the challenges of social care. Not just in the context of what the sector is dealing with now. But also, the challenges the sector faces as it looks forward 20 or 30 years into the future. How can social care remain a sustainable and vibrant sector? 

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“The reason why I started Nourish, the reason why we’re still going, is that I believe that a digitally enabled care system is a system that has better chances of delivering better outcomes for people in the day-to-day. In the process of building this business I’ve learnt so much about social care. Increasingly people invite me to events to share a little bit of what I’ve learnt. But also, perhaps a little bit of opinion and my view. And I’m going to start by setting a provocative scene: 

“I believe we are witnessing a remake of Dickens’ ‘The Tale of Two Cities‘. With inequality across society increasing, we will see this reflected in social care. 

“I often advise people in my circle of friends and local community about setting up their own businesses. Six months ago, I met someone who came from a banking background. They setup a domiciliary care business during the pandemic. She felt that care workers were underpaid by about 50%. So, she decided to offer services priced adequately for the quality of service. She decided to steer clear of local authorities’ commissioned services. Fast forward six months, she now employs 45 people – a phenomenal growth story. The opportunity is there to make a huge difference.  

“So, what I think the trends are showing is that there is a world of private pay. A world of local authority or commissioners’ pay. And these two worlds are becoming more and more divergent.  

“There is a surge in self-funding which is obviously driven by early baby boomers who have buying power and expect choice. A result of their life experience. They expect high quality. They expect highly personalised care and prices to reflect that. There are a vibrant, innovative and resilient group of providers focused on achieving positive outcomes every day. It’s out there and these stories need more sharing.

“The market is extremely responsive, if you provide quality care, by professionally trained care workers you end up with success stories. These care workers are not people who will look at the local supermarket for options out of despair on pay. They are proud professional care workers who are paid appropriately. These are people that are proud of the work they do. They will never look at the NHS as an alternative. They earn more than what they would be earning if they were working for the NHS. Accordingly, they feel more empowered to make a difference in someone’s life. 

“And then we have the other side, where there is an erosion on commissioners’ ability to understand the community needs.  Communities need resilience and commissioners are still trying to create markets without focusing on outcomes. Micro-managing care delivered as tasks paid for by the minute. They are focusing on the lowest price, encouraging a focus on efficiencies, and minutes being counted. Unfortunately, in this environment it is down to care providers again, to shape the market and educate the sector the best they can, so that commissioners can at least keep a market going with a degree of focus on quality rather than just the lowest possible price. Again, care providers are achieving this despite the headwinds, and there are a lot of examples of good care being delivered efficiently. Indeed with continuous tension on pay, and continuous engagement with the wider system to ensure people do not fall through the cracks (which still happens more regularly than it should).”

“While this is happening there is some noise in the background around how digital transformation is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the entire sector. And it is.  

“If we have a digitally enabled sector, we can aspire to have a global view of how those systems support people to achieve outcomes that are important to them.  

“It is happening with some risks. Digital Social Care Records programmes are being absorbed by NHS England, while it is going through its own restructuring. The COVID urgency, that gave us a degree of clarity of purpose in driving digital transformation across the sector, is now starting to fade. ICS’s are being created with little representation from social care providers. Social care is a larger sector than the NHS by many measures. Consequently making this approach structurally wrong. With a significant risk of seeing social care being treated as an extension to the NHS and managed by boards that have several degrees of separation from care delivery. Undeniably this carries the potential to go horribly wrong.  

“My question is, isn’t what we are witnessing in social care a reflection of what society really wants from social care? The fact that our civilisation today is not clear about what we expect from social care, isn’t that our main challenge? We have two cities that are drifting apart as a result.” 

“Well, sadly, I think it is a challenge. I think part of our challenge is to travel from a tale of two cities to Shangri-la. 

“It was interesting to hear the conversations in today’s conference about how we need change but we’re not clear about a whole raft of things. Well, the first thing I think we’re not clear about is the vision for social care.  

“I don’t think we are clear enough about what social care does and how it transforms lives. And to the point you made that we’re seeing this differentiation between what public and private will pay and will expect. I think what we’ve got to do as a sector is close that gap. We’ve got to say every single citizen has a right to the best. It’s about changing people’s lives. It’s about enabling them to live well and giving them life chances and opportunities. How interventions at critical times can stop people going into higher dependency needs. I think what’s been missing is that we have not been very good at getting that message out that we have a vision for social care.

“We have had 70 years of propaganda telling us how great the NHS is. The world war created a platform where people came back and said, never again are we going to be denied access to health care. Well, I think we’ve now got to use our platform to say, people need social care because the world has changed! They’re going to expect social care that’s high quality. Care that wraps itself around their individual needs. Care that is developed in a way that responds to giving them as much choice and control as possible. 

“Accordingly, that must be our starting point for the future.” 

Martin Green (Left) & Nuno Almeida (right) share the stage

“This is inspirational. This is the vision that I wish society at large would share of social care.  

“Whenever we start talking about social care. Even in the context of COVID when we saw photos of care workers as heroes. It very quickly ends up boiling down to a conversation on capacity. Do we have beds? Can we discharge fast enough?  

“How can we change that conversation? How can we, as a sector, actually start being seen as an essential pillar of society? As much as so many other sectors are, such as fire services or police. Why are we different?”

“Well, I think we spend too much time responding to the NHS. So, it’s all about how we discharge from the NHS. Actually, within social care, we can develop a whole range of new services. Where most people don’t need to go near the NHS. Additionally, I think we need to start thinking about being creative with our business models and our models of service.  

“So, if you think about somebody who might be living with early onset dementia in a local area. The NHS has got nothing to offer them. But social care can change their world. If we start crafting a new approach to this, we can stop people needing to go into the NHS because the NHS is built on a complete myth. That myth is that you diagnose somebody, you treat them, and when you’ve intervened, they’re either dead or cured. That was the situation in 1948 and that is what people think about the NHS. So, if I talk about the NHS. People immediately have the perception that if they have a problem then the NHS will solve it. For lots of people, we know that’s not the case anymore. 

“So, what we’ve got to do is start the conversation at a different point. We’ve got to start also thinking about what we can do to make sure people don’t need to go into the NHS and think about the funding model for this. So that we’re not always dependant on going to the local authority. Or going to the NHS prevention budget.  

“We need to think about what we can do to draw down resources from various pots. Some will be personal budgets, and some might be insurance driven. But we need to start thinking differently.  

“I had a very interesting conversation with a respiratory surgeon in America. Where they are now funded for outcomes, for health interventions like we do with the NHS. But that consultant said to me that his biggest success was from installing air conditioning units in the homes of his poorer patients. Patients who couldn’t have afforded them. That was stopping them from going into respiratory failure in that smoggy New York summer. Consequently avoiding hospital admissions.  

“Now if you tried to adopt a different policy and think holistically about health and social care services. How do we tackle some of the elements that would give people a better life? I think what we can do in social care is think about how we package up a whole raft of things. Some of it might be about our service. But some of it might be about the auxiliary and support services that are available.  

“For example, for people who are doing home care. You will see it frequently that you’re just commissioned to do a specific task in a specific time. I have great respect for Jane Townsend (Chief Executive of the UK Home Care Association), who has argued for the end of time and task. It’s time to start thinking about people and outcomes across our entire system.  

“At the moment we are obsessed with process and organisations. We saw it during the pandemic. We saw endless discussion centred on the NHS. As if somehow that was the solution to all problems. We all got the image of a minister standing behind a lectern. Saying, ‘stay at home, support the NHS, save lives‘. It would be like saying, ‘stay at home, don’t spend money, keep the bank deposits high‘. It sounds silly, but that’s how we behave. 

“We are where we are. So, we’ve got to grasp the agenda as a sector. We’ve got to start thinking, creatively. About how we can change this model. How we can burst through so that people know we are going to deliver them a good life underpinned by good services. That’s where we need to start with this new vision.”  

“From my point of view, supporting people to have a good life, should be the mantra of an integrated system. After 15 years of studying social care, I still feel like an outsider. The separation between health and social care still feels profoundly artificial. 

“The reality is social care is much better at dealing with the other 95% of concerns that aren’t health related. Social care deals with the whole of a persons’ life. Not just their health conditions. And whether a person is living in a nursing home with five comorbidities or living at home receiving support from community services. Health should not be their main concern for having a good life. Social care understands that need. 

“Now the messaging opportunity for social care is to emphasise that social care has much better mechanisms and tools to tackle long-term conditions. Indeed, social care is probably the only system that can do a good job at supporting a person living with dementia in leading a good life. But social care is also better geared to deal with people who have diabetes and chronic respiratory conditions. Or cancer, which is increasingly a long-term condition. So, I think that social care has more answers that are essential for the future of healthcare. The sustainability of the system depends on healthcare understanding this. How do we communicate this? And how do we allow the NHS to step down from their pedestal and allow social care to help the NHS become more sustainable. To work as peers, not as a core health system with social care operating on the periphery?”  

“Well, it’s tough. When we’re going into ICS’s my cynical head says that I’m so old I remember joint appointments. Coterminosity, joint location, I remember Primay Care Trusts, I remember Clinical Commissioning Groups. They were all going to deliver the holy grail of integration.  

“None of them did.  

“But I don’t think that should mean that we say this won’t work. I think what we have to do now is roll up our sleeves and say how can we make this work?  

“It’s going to be tough because care providers are not engaged in ICSs. We have to have sharp elbows to push our way in. To get some of these solutions in front of the public.  

“I think one of our problems is that we often just talk to the system. We need to talk to the public. When we see that piece of news that says. ‘Mrs Gubbins had to wait for X number of months for her hip replacement‘. Let’s go out and showcase that if Mrs Gubbins was connected to a social care service, while she might not have had a hip replacement, she would have still maintained a quality of life. Because we could have supported the degradation in quality of life which is often irreversible. I think we’ve got to be much more creative about the narrative. More focused on sharing news that we can do some things which are really useful to citizens. And crucially, get citizens to understand that.  

“It’s about how we champion what we do. We’ve got 1.6 million people working in social care. They could be our ambassadors talking about social care at every available opportunity. The reality is that you go to a party, and somebody’s really delighted to tell you they work for the NHS. But they’re not so delighted to tell you that they work for social care. So, I guess we’ve got to do something around instilling pride in what we do in our workforce. But also give them some tools to present that to the world. How can we turn the party conversation around? How can we reveal that we are care workers with pride? Rather than a degree of expectation that this will be met with a negative reaction.”  

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This interview opened a wide range of discussions across the room. Discussion which continued into the late afternoon. It was inspirational to see so many care providers approaching us to discuss the topics we raised further.

How can we get better at managing our relationships with continuing health care (CHC)? How do you think we can use digital transformation to improve our relationships with commissioners and with ICS? What is the best way to use Nourish and digital transformation in the context of improving staff retention? Do you have a view on how to shape our digital transformation so we can deliver the right care to each person we support in a blended self-funder and local authority-paid environment?

If you have any questions, get in touch about any of these topics, or other topics related to care quality improvement, digital social care records and digital transformation in health and social care.  

Nourish founder and CEO, Nuno Almeida has been featured in LaingBuisson’s CareMarkets UK magazine for a Q&A. The interview details Nuno’s upbringing and background, his introduction into social care and vision for the future of Nourish and social care as a whole.

On his initial introduction to social care:

“I grew up in a small village in the centre region of Portugal. The family home had a shared boundary with the largest mental health  hospital in the country – and growing up in the 1980s when the clinical practice of mental health evolved making it possible for patients to walk out and about in the community – the community kept an eye out for patients who were free to roam in the village. In the same village, there was a working farm manned by over 150 people with learning difficulties. At the time I had no idea what social care was, and I thought everyone lived in a similar environment.”

On bringing more positivity to the sector:

“We are a vibrant sector, full of brilliant, extremely resilient people, full of innovation, a sector that plays a very important role in the tapestry of our communities and our country. We need to keep our collective chins up and show this to the world consistently.”

Read the full CareMarkets interview here.

You may also be interested in reading:

Warrington Community Living: “Nourish: the exciting new digital service helping us to deliver the very best care”

Nutrition & Hydration: Encouraging healthy nutrition and hydration in your care service 

To find out more about how Nourish can benefit your care service, book your free personalised demo today!

We’re going to be attending this year’s Health Plus Care show held in the Excel, London from the 29th to the 30th of June. Billed as the largest national integrated care conference, we’re hoping the event will be a big one for the industry and will be showing off our care management system on stand Q30.

Health Plus Care aims to bring together four different shows, which means that over 9000 attendees from the NHS, care providers, public health and local authorities will be visiting across the two days.

We’ll be demonstrating how Nourish empowers carers and health professionals in almost all health settings, and offering some yummy treats for hungry event goers too. This year we’re also offering one lucky care professional a fantastic spa weekend. All you have to do is visit the stand and talk to the team to find out more.

As a final note we can also provide some last minute guest tickets for any Nourish clients who might’ve missed out on signing up for the event, but still want to go. As tickets are almost sold out at this point, we’d like to make sure all of our clients have the opportunity to attend.

To find out more, drop us an email to caring@nourishcare.co.uk or get in touch  via Intercom and we’ll make sure that you and your team have some complimentary guest passes on us!

We’re looking forward to seeing you there.

Nourish is proud to announce the launch of a game changing care management product. Writing notes and handling paper records are recurrently quoted as leading contributors to loss of productivity from care providers, and motivation from carers. Nourish removes the chore from daily note recording and care plan updating.

With an all new care integration product, combined with carefully designed mobile apps, Nourish enables carers to record tasks and outcomes on the go. Nourish has managed to bring back the joy of caring, and remove some of the most resource heavy aspects of the job.

Nourish’s apps are completely driven by a secure cloud care plan. This care plan is then used to coordinate everyone who needs to stay in the loop, reducing overall disconnect between families, carers and commissioners. The company is therefore enabling providers to step forward in full alignment with the guidelines of the upcoming Care Act 2015 in all aspects of care integration, community and family engagement in care provision and reporting. Care providers can in turn engage families by offering a secure app to the next of kin, who can stay in the loop of the care being provided.

Nourish Care is exhibiting at stand D14, Birmingham Care Show, 4-5 November 2014.