Elizabeth Lodge is a well-established and family run residential care home based in Alverstoke, Gosport. It has a team of twenty-seven lovely staff, devoted to looking after 18 individuals, the majority of whom have some form of cognitive impairment.
Nourish has been a partner of Elizabeth Lodge since 2016, and have been able to see them flourish through going paperless. I spoke with Emma Curtis, the manager of Elizabeth Lodge & Amelia Pullinger, the deputy manager to discuss all things Nourish. Amelia was previously a bank staff carer alongside studying for about eight years, before becoming a deputy manager in February 2019.
How were the daily notes recorded at Elizabeth Lodge when you first joined?
We used to have these big paper folders of paperwork, which we would all have to sit down and go through at the end of every shift. Things would often get missed out, because by the time they’ve sat down to write their notes at the end of a long shift, people would forget things.
How has Nourish been different to the paper-based method of recording notes?
Although we did log things in the paperwork, they were not as detailed as what we have now on Nourish, as we now have the day grouped into all the different care interactions. Before it was just text. Because Nourish enables you to record things as you go, it is more thorough and more detailed.
How have you experienced recording at the point of care?
The mobile handsets have definitely cut down our time on writing. The younger staff, who are used to using their phones, just think it’s brilliant, but there was a learning curve. For some of the older carers, it did cause anxiety and it was a big change.
Have these perceptions of technology changed over the time of using Nourish?
Definitely, one of the biggest challenges was people who were nervous about technology and didn’t want to change. This did take time, but now they’re more confident using it.
David, our Head of Account Management at Nourish, has worked closely with the team at Elizabeth Lodge over the years and has seen first-hand how they’ve developed: “As an early adopter of the Nourish system, the care team at Elizabeth Lodge have embraced all sorts of changes within the home and have our full support. Three years on, we are really pleased that Elizabeth Lodge continuing to have a strong partnership with Nourish.”
