Joy2Care is a family-run home care provider built on a simple but powerful philosophy, clients become extended members of the family. At Joy2Care, relationship-centred care means treating every person with the same warmth, respect and attention they would expect for their own grandparents. That family value extends across the whole service, through every carer and into people’s homes. 

Joy2Care’s journey with Nourish began over 10 years ago, when rotas were still written on paper in the back garden of the founder’s home. Notably separate from the people they cared for. Since then, Nourish has become central to how they deliver person-centred care, improve their operations and keep connected with clients, care teams and families. Bringing together familial commitment and commercial acumen to deliver quality, sustainable, care for their community. 

Joy2Care have wrapped Nourish around their service. Nourish Better Care at Home supports first-person care planning, gives families greater visibility through the app, and helps their team communicate clearly and precisely. It has also transformed their financial management, reducing a manual invoicing process that once took weeks down to days, with estimated savings of around £18,000 a year. 

We spoke with their Director of Operations, Josh Farrell, to learn more about how Joy2Care utilise Nourish Better Care at Home to improve oversight, reinforce connections, and build for the future. 

The Joy in Joy2Care
The family approach to home care 

Centralisation
The oversight and key perspectives that support quality care 

Communication
How Better Care at Home connects their teams, clients and community and supports their operational sustainability 

Finance
The digital switch that saved Joy2Care around £18,000 annually 

Operational Sustainability
Utilising Better Care at Home to best understand the demands of their community and supporting them effectively with their teams 

“Well, without sounding really cringy, we’re a family business. So, everyone we work with, all our clients become extended members of the Farrell family. That is how it is. 

“I’ve always felt when it comes to supporting people, it’s how you expect your grandparents to be treated. Now, admittedly I’m a bit of a cheeky chap, so I love to have a laugh and joke with them all. That’s because, at the end of the day, they do become like our family members.  

“The family values extend to our care staff as well. We only hire people who match our values. I would rather do all the work myself if it means getting the right carers in with the right beliefs. We’re going to look after vulnerable clients in their own homes, you must be the right type of person to be able to do that the right way.”

“That was a decision I made about 10 years ago. We used to do rotas on pieces of paper in the back garden of my mum and dad’s house! That’s back when the business was not that old. I wanted us to improve our approach. 

“I looked around at our options for a digital partner. Talking with Nourish, and seeing what your system could do, made it an easy choice. We did check out the competition at times, but we always come back to Nourish. We love building with Nourish over the years, tailoring the system to our unique needs.  

“These days I don’t need to talk to anyone else because I know what I’m getting with Nourish, a genuine partnership, that’s what I like.” 

“It just increases the person-centred care side of things through everything. That’s what we’re really big on. We write everything in first person. It’s not ‘Josh is doing this’, it’s ‘I like to’ and ‘I decided to’. Better Care at Home helps us to deliver that even more and become more efficient with everything we’re doing along the line. 

“Working with Nourish always feels person centred too. It’s not a one size fits all approach, or at least it doesn’t feel that way. It genuinely does feel like someone’s built a bespoke system for my business. Which I suppose we have done together, over the years, as part of working in partnership with Nourish. I’m certainly a big, big advocate.”

“Better Care at Home is fantastic for centralising all our information. I can come into the office on a Monday and I can check through everything I need then and there. I used to have to drive around and pick up files and client’s notes back in the day!  

“On Better Care at Home everything we need to know to support our clients is in one place. That centralisation of information makes a huge difference to the quality of care we can provide, in a way that supports the personal, familial connections that define our approach to care.  

“Which makes life so much easier. We’re not clicking through everything and then forgetting what you clicked on and having to backtrack through different systems. I can just go where I want straight away, and I can review what I need straight away.  

“I don’t need to be in the office either, which is so important with home care. I’ve done it on my laptop and on the phone when I’m out and about. I can just log on and see everything. Rather than relying on phone calls and WhatsApp messages I can see firsthand that everything is running smoothly. 

“It’s the same with my own holidays. I know you’re supposed to unwind, but we’re a family business, you do check everything. With Better Care at Home you can do that straight away. That level of oversight speeds up our whole business, as it simplifies my communication with our managers. 

“It’s really good to see it from our side of view, but also from the client side of view as well.”

“It’s brilliant, it makes it so much smoother for keeping people connected and informed.  

“I’ve had some really good feedback from family members of people utilising Joy2Care. The daughter of one of our clients went on holiday recently with her friends. While she’s on holiday she logs into the app to check in on everything. Her mate is blown away, asking her ‘Wow, what’s this?’ So she takes her through it. Two weeks later, her mate is calling us, asking us to assess her mum based on what she saw on holiday! 

“So that’s helping us both improve connections through our service and expand our business!”

“Communication is crucial for quality, and the communication in Better Care at Home is great. It’s a big focus for us. It’s key to any business being successful. 

“It’s about good communication, not just talking for talking sake. The same is true for digital communication. It needs to be clear and precise. That’s what Better Care at Home’s communication features are like. It’s focused on what you want to talk about, and just helps you move on with everything.”

“Our team really like it. We have introduced a lot of the different functions in the system over the past few months. We realised a while back that we weren’t utilising everything we could on the platform. 

“Over the past few months, as we’ve gotten more comfortable with the new features, we’ve been utilising a lot more on the system. We’re just getting more and more used to it, and everyone seems to really like it.”

“The invoicing is fantastic! The finance functionality in general. Especially from my perspective as that’s my side of the business. At Joy2Care we used to do invoicing manually, in quite a convoluted way. We’d count it all up, put it onto a Word document and so on. That used to probably take about two-three weeks, solid time, to get all invoices sent out. 

“Since I moved that process over to Nourish it takes two days. The total savings for us are about £18,000 a year by just moving over the invoicing. It makes the whole process so much smoother, and transparent.  

“It’s particularly useful for client feedback as well. It’s so good because you get the breakdown of all the things. And what I like as well is what we used to have as a problem. People would call in to make a payment and it would all be on a spreadsheet. If a senior manager wasn’t immediately available manager wasn’t immediately available. 

“Now, because it’s on the system, they can explain it directly. Nourish shows your invoice is £2,500, here’s why. It’s great to have that resource and tick everything off easily.  

“The reporting side of things is also great. It simplifies my life by making it easy to see how much money is outstanding. I can check what’s owed and who’s owed it, resend out the invoices where necessary. We can even track our emails. So, when people go, ‘I’ve not received the invoice’ I can load up Nourish and review the email, where it was sent and if it was opened. This helps us keep our communication effective and transparent.

“The level of financial savings, control and insight Better Care at Home brings to our service helps us prepare and build for our future sustainably.”

“We also use the system to review how many care calls, care workers and so on when planning rotas.  

“There’s so much useful information captured by Better Care at Home that we can take into account. Things like the functions where you can look about how many late appointments we’ve been to. I always have a look at that and then talk to my team about rostering. ‘I can see we’ve had this many late appointments, what’s the reason?’ ‘How can we solve this issue?’ It’s always good now.    

“It’s helped me learn about how many carers workers I need, and when I need them. I can see our low demands times, and I can plan more effectively for late shifts. Each day I know how many carers I need. I know whether they are walkers or drivers, I know everything and that’s helped me so much with our operational planning. I used to spend hours building those kinds of reports on our back end. Better Care at Home makes it all so much easier to understand.”

“I love working with Nourish. Every time I’ve needed support, or guidance you’ve been there.  

“For example, a big part of us saving so much money with invoicing came from the support and guidance of your team.  

 “That’s why I won’t leave. You’ve been so good with us, like a member of our extended family.”

In 2017, the Public Health Outcomes Framework reported that 220,160 emergency hospital admissions were related to falls in the over 65 age group. A fall can have enormous repercussions to someone’s life, affecting their mobility, independence and health. Utilising Nourish and making some key changes can minimise the risk of a fall within your care service.  

Oversight is essential for quality care, whether you’re in a family run business or a franchise. Our Insights Dashboards are built to highlight the most relevant information on your Nourish platform, in the most accessible, and actionable way for your team. Creating a clear workflow from point of data recording, through review, decision making and back to positive impact for the people you support.

Staying hydrated and drinking enough fluid is important. Drinking consistently throughout the day, rather than attempting to hit the desired fluid intake in the latter half of the day, will decrease the risk of other health complications. This can include urine infections which can cause delirium and increased confusion, increasing the likelihood of a fall. Desired fluid intake and MUST scores are incorporated in Nourish, allowing you to keep an eye on the hydration and nutrition of the people you support.  

According to the NHS, exercise can decrease the risk of a fall, particularly strength and balance training. Strength and balance training can involve activities as simple as walking or dancing. Tai Chi is another exercise that can prevent falls as it emphasises on movement, balance and coordination. Activities can be logged in the Nourish app as can the level of participation and enjoyment. This will allow you to see how and if exercise has made any improvements to a person’s mobility. 

Appointments can be logged on the Nourish app and can be viewed as part of the daily care plan of the people you support, giving greater visibility for your care team. Seeing the podiatrist to check that nails are not overgrown or suffering any ailment that may make walking difficult. Also on footwear, you can add into the daily care plan a requirement that checks the people you support are wearing suitable and well-fitting footwear. Regular check-ups with the opticians will check the people you support are wearing the appropriate eyewearfor their needs. You can also add a note into the care plan. This gives your care team the ability to easily view who wears glasses.  

It may be useful to identify a Falls Champion for your service. Some local NHS trusts and councils hold training for Falls Champions. Champions are advocates for prevention and management of falls. They can ensure that staff are following fall management protocols. Champions can analyse data to see how and why falls are happening and implement measures to prevent this. Champions additionally ensure risk assessments are being followed for those at greater risk of a fall e.g.the use of sensor mats or alarm pendants.  

Some types of medication and combination of medications can increase the risk of falls. Having the oversight via an eMAR solution alongside other care records and information gives the ability to monitor, manage and evaluate a person’s medications. With a view to reducing falls risks and associated complications. Being able to monitor this medication and provide visibility of symptoms among your team can increase awareness and reduce the risk of falls. As well as regular medication reviews to assist in ensuring side effects and symptoms are monitored. Nourish integrates with various eMARs, allowing you and your team to see what medication the people you support use.  

We designed Nourish to be the base for your digital ecosystem. We integrate with various eMAR solutions, pain management apps, eRedBag and GP Connect, encouraging interoperability in health, care and support. Additionally, we are always looking to integrate with technology supplier who can improve the lives of the people we support.  

Value is a vital when operating a care home. It is imperative for providers to make the right decisions, with the right returns, to maintain a successful service. Which is why finding the right digital partner is crucial when choosing technology for small care homes.

We spoke to Subhaan Iqbal, IT Director and Compliance Lead at Principle Care Homes, about his experience. Subhaan has extensive experience supporting care providers with their digitisation, and has learned the importance of getting started at the right time. They wanted to establish their technology before expanding their locations, and they found the perfect partner in Nourish.

Watch the video below to learn how Nourish Care works with the team at Principle Care home to deliver the results they want. Including how the Nourish Partnership Programme helps them build the right digital ecosystem for their service. There are a lot of different types of technology for small care homes. With so many options to choose from, and so many decisions to make, the NPP can help you find the best technology for your community.

You can watch the Principle Care Homes case study here below.

Principle Care Homes is a new generation of care homes. Co-founded by brother and sister, Ashish and Nisha Goyal they aim to provide extraordinary care and support and truly exceptional environments. They operate Broomfield Village in Chelmsford with plans to open Heron Manor in Hampshire this Summer. Principle Care Homes support residential, dementia, respite and nursing residents.

At the heart of Principle lies a simple yet powerful mission: to make people feel special. In their service every individuals uniqueness is celebrated as an expression of who they are. A demanding charge, but one they fulfill with enthusiasm, skill and a trusted digital partner in Nourish.

We sat down with Subhaan Iqbal, IT Director and Compliance Lead at Principle Care Homes, to discuss how partnering with Nourish helped them streamline processes, create efficiencies and improve oversight.

Principle Care Homes joined Nourish four years ago. Integration was a key focus. “We didn’t want systems for system’s sake,” said Subhaan. Since then they have developed their digital ecosystem to meet the needs of their community.

They have worked closely with the Nourish Partnership Programme during this time to build out their digital ecosystem. This has helped them ensure they utilise technology to improve outcomes for everyone involved with their service. Sharing their direction with Nourish and working towards the same goal has helped Principle Care Homes to get the results they want, and Nourish to better understand their challenges and ambitions.

We must crawl, walk and then run. However, as many new home care providers know, there’s plenty to trip over on the way to full speed. The journey from start to Outstanding is filled with unique home care challenges. But with the right people, and the right systems, you can face anything. After all, success is a marathon not a sprint. When you look to your future make sure you think long term. Smart investments early in your journey can help save you time, money and hassle as your business expands.  

We’ve put together a list of the 10 most common home care challenges faced by new home care providers with that in mind.  Hopefully it can give you a little guidance when you need it.  

If you would like to talk to us directly about starting your home care journey off strong, contact us here.  

Recruitment and retention are longstanding home care challenges. In Skills for Care’s 2024 State of Care Report there was a vacancy rate of 8.3% in social care jobs. 3 times higher than the national average.  

Addressing recruitment is often a matter of retention. Providing your team with a quality work environment, good conditions and understanding is essential. Investing in your people is as important as investing in your technology. You can create a rising tide of care quality with training, engagement and advancement opportunities for your team.   

Technology can make managing and championing your teams more straightforward too. Whether utilising time off functionality to simplify rostering or eLearning to make developing your skills straightforward for your team. 

Compliance is often intimidating for new home care providers. Getting the information right for your regulator is crucial. You need to be able to tell comprehensive care stories regardless of the imperial initialism haunting your dreams.  

Care management systems support home care providers to do this by recording everything you need in one central location. So, you can not only record, but also review and report your data, for your regulator. This empowers you to tell your care story, and get the rating you deserve. 

We talk in more detail about the importance of compliance in home care here. 

Home care technology offers home care providers the opportunity to ‘future proof’ their business. But what does this increasingly popular buzzword actually mean? 

The right software can help simplify your processes. More than this, it can be used to establish your best practice in an easily replicable, and scalable way. Allowing for simpler onboarding of both new carers and people utilising care.  

A common challenge for home care providers is poor communication and information sharing. Your carers are experts in their experiences. Home care software helps providers to share this expertise and experience across your whole community. 

This includes improving communication with third parties like Local authorities and healthcare services, as well as internally. In the past poor information sharing and ‘information silos’ led to duplication of effort and inconsistent care.  

Care technology addresses this challenge by simplifying the centralisation your information and making it easier to action. 

Maintaining a high standard of care in a home setting can be challenging due to limited resources and oversight. Home care technology offers a range of solutions to address this. The best of which are fully compliant with the digital social care records standards and are listed on the Assured Solutions List. Best practice can be enshrined in your processes and ensured through your system set up.  

Functionality like remote monitoring and warnings help providers to shape and share their best practice across their service. A system like Nourish Care supports home care providers to establish their approach to care, record and review their care application, and continually improve it in line with feedback from their community. 

Home care is unique in many ways. At the core of this approach to care is the nature of appointments. Home carers appreciate the sanctity of someone’s home. Home care providers appreciate the sanctity of someone’s schedule.  

Call monitoring enables carers to record their actual appointment times. Guaranteeing accurate times and locations for appointment starts. This information is vital for reporting to commissioning bodies. It is also useful for feeding back into your own processes to refine and perfect the flow of your carers through your community. 

A schedule is never straightforward in home care. Abrupt changes and unforeseen adjustments are par for the course. Navigating these home care challenges on paper or a digital spreadsheet is incredibly difficult.  

Digital rostering simplifies every step of this process. From set up to rescheduling and reporting, drag and drop rostering systems make adjusting rotas simple. Nourish Care boasts a ‘Recommend’ feature that gathers all the relevant information you have on your carers, including travel time, skills and previous relationship with the person drawing on support.  

Ensuring that whatever spot you’re in, you can make an informed decision. 

Carer burnout is a serious and understandable concern for home care providers. Home care workers can experience stress, emotional fatigue, and physical exhaustion while carrying out their responsibilities.  

As we mentioned in the Recruitment and Retention section, understanding is essential. Digital systems can promote this understanding with communication tools, personal development support and better oversight.  

Balancing costs, invoices and timesheets can be overwhelming. Especially for home care providers who are just starting out.  

There are a number of digital systems that can help you simplify this process. Nourish for home care offers a finance management suite so you can manage payments, organise payroll, and create invoices. We also offer an integration with Sage.  

Centralising your financial processes simplifies their management. It can also help you gain a clearer oversight of your finances and help you make more informed decisions about your future direction.  

Client acquisition will always be a concern for home care providers when starting out. How do you make sure you are attracting enough clients to maintain your business? 

Well, addressing the above home care challenges is a great place to start! 

Digital systems give you better oversight of your care, promoting a deeper understanding of your community and driving improved outcomes for the people who draw on your support. Which will naturally spread the word of your care quality across private buyers and public commissioners alike.  

So, you can build the future you want for your team, your business, and your community, at a pace that suits you. 

If you’d like to learn more about building for your future with Nourish as your digital partner, contact us. 

Digital care record systems have gone from a ‘nice to have’ to a ‘need to have’ in social care. Most providers have moved to a digital system or are in the process of implementing one. With widespread digital uptake the question has changed from; ‘are you using a digital system?’ to ‘are you using the right digital system for your service?’

Just under two years ago the government launched its ‘Digitising Social Care’ campaign, delivering the three year £150 million investment for digitally transforming adult social care, as was set out in the 2021 white paper, People at the Heart of Care.

This campaign built on a decade of digitisation in Social Care. Driven in part by the pandemic. That saw care providers take on a variety of different digital systems to help them deliver outstanding care.

The driving force of the ‘Digitising Social Care’ campaign has focussed on ensuring 80% of providers, and at least 80% of people in receipt of care, have a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) that is compliant with their standards in place by March 2024. While it fell slightly shy of this target. There has still been a significant uptake in digital social care records. From the 40% of providers using them at the start of the campaign. The uptake reflects the benefits of digital systems in care, and the necessity of compliance with the established DSCR standards. These positive results have led to the government extending funding for the campaign until March 2026.

Nourish Care was the first system to join the NHS England Assured Solutions List back in 2021. Since then, the list has grown significantly, so how do you choose the right one?

Incompatibility between systems and services is a rising source of operational frustration for providers. ‘All-in-one’ systems can be limited by the applicability and lack the resources to support more complex or person-centred care, while specialised systems can be disconnected, leaving your team to fill in the gaps between them manually.

Routine system evaluations are a great way to uncover and address these frustrations. This process involves identifying the issues with the platform you are using and evaluating the impact of this issue on your organisation. It takes time and effort to establish the best criteria sets for your service. We have included a guide which you can use to help you get started.

Digitisation has impacted everyone involved in care, so it is best practice to include your entire organisation in the evaluation process. Any frustrations caused by your digital system will be felt by carers and coordinators alike.

Your organisation has multiple roles and responsibilities, and it is important to involve them in your evaluation process through interviews and surveys. An example of some common roles are:

If possible, you should also involve the people who utilise your service in this process, such as when evaluating the effectiveness of integrations with other systems like PainChek or GP Connect as well as circle of care functionality like a family portal.

The more experiences you can account for when evaluating your system, the more complete your picture of its impact will be.

Digitisation in Social Care happened at such a rapid pace since COVID that, understandably, some people have been left behind. When evaluating the impact of your system it is important to consider not just the functionality, but also the user experience.

Do your team feel confident not only with the system, but with the support they have around it? Are there resources and training available to help your team improve their understanding of the system? Is there a customer support team they can reach out to for guidance and support?

Many issues with digital systems come from their misapplication. When evaluating your current digital platform, it is vital to consider your team’s comfort with the system. It might be a matter of reviewing and reworking the way you are implementing the system, as opposed to changing your system all together.

To provide outstanding care, you must constantly be reviewing and improving upon your processes in a responsive and caring way. It is natural to expect the same of your system, as you both adapt to the always evolving reality of care provision.

Digital skills develop over time. With that time it is common to look for more ways to apply your skills to support your care. Such as through data reporting and analysis. By routinely reviewing the capabilities of yourself and your system. You can make sure you are maximising the benefits of your digitisation journey.

The new DSCR standards must be fully met by everybody on the ASL. They represent the next step of Social Care’s digitisation journey. An evolving emphasis on data, security and interoperability that reflects the success and potential of digital software in care. 

The new compliance regulations were announced last year and Nourish has been busy ensuring that it meets each of the 14 standards. This level of screening will mean that only software suppliers who meet stringent standards will be able to remain on the NHS Assured Solutions List.

With so many options available to care providers for digital systems, it is the perfect time to review the needs of your service and community. There is a wealth of suppliers eager to explain their system and its capabilities to you. By knowing what you have and what you want from a digital platform. You will be well-equipped to get what you need.

At Nourish we are well versed in helping people to transition from underperforming digital care record systems to ours. We have resources, guides and team members who would be delighted to talk to you about the process further. If you would like to learn more contact us.