National Care Group are one of the UK’s leading providers of social care. They specialise in working with adults with learning disabilities, autism, mental health, acquired brain injury, and associated complex needs. Their support is provided across England and Wales, by over 2,800 colleagues, supporting over 1,350 people. National Care Group supports people to live the lives they want, in a place they call home, through expertise, understanding and co-production.
When it was time to digitise their services, they knew they needed a partner and not just a supplier. Due to their highly personalised approach to support planning, they wanted a system that was customisable. One they could shape to the unique needs of each of their homes, and the unique needs of each one of the adults who utilise their services. Operational efficiency could not come at the expense of experience, for their staff or the people they support. A good system can be hard to find in today’s market, especially one that is customisable, comprehensive and collaborative. Their search ended with Nourish Care.
We sat down with Kate Harvey, registered manager of National Care Group residential service, Walliscote Road, to discuss the transformative impact Nourish brought to their community. Sarah McCann, their Head of Marketing, also joined us to provide context for the rollout on a wider scale.
How important is co-production at National Care Group?
“We try to run things a little bit differently,” explained Kate Harvey. “Although our service is residential, we try and run it to feel more like supported living. This can mean small things like tailored menus and dining times to suit the people we support, to the bigger things like giving each person a kitchen to make their dinner in! The people supported are fully involved in how we design and utilise rooms throughout the house, so that it really feels like home for them. Whether it’s the activities room or the quiet room, which they have named, the important thing is recognising that it’s theirs. So, it’s more individualised, like a supported living model. This enables us to tailor their support plans to their specific needs. Walliscote Road has only been open for about 2 years, and I’m proud to say it’s going really well.
How does Nourish help you promote co-production?
“We needed a digital solution that was able to support the level of co-production we provide,” said Kate. “Nourish makes it possible for us to involve the people we support in their own care records so simply. For example, a person we support called Jamie is very involved and in control of his own support planning. He loves Nourish, he loves anything computerised: online shopping, photography, everything. So, it was fantastic to bring in Nourish and be able to share it with him. Working with whoever is supporting him at the time, they’ll do the daily notes together. So, it’s like a joint exercise and it’s become an enjoyable part of the day. He’ll see what’s been written about him and he’ll either agree or not agree. This gives us the opportunity to have a conversation with him about his experience, rather than just seeing us write in a book.
“It just makes the whole interaction more engaging. Thanks to your photo sharing functionality it’s more visual, we can pop photos in and it’s amazing. For example, there was one picture where Jamie was volunteering in a charity shop, and they snapped a picture of him doing his job. But he didn’t look very happy. So, it gave that opportunity for us to ask, ‘You didn’t look too happy doing that, what was going on there?’ It’s another opportunity for an important conversation, and for us to say, ‘Oh, okay, what can we do differently?’ Or ‘What would make you happier?’ ‘What would you enjoy more?’”
What is the benefit of using Nourish to promote co-production?
“It definitely supports us to be more person-centered,” said Kate. The fact that everything is recorded in real time makes a huge difference too. We are no longer asking our support workers to write up all their notes at the end of the day. Which has been amazing for the team, now our notes have all the finer points that happen throughout the day. Team members no longer have to remember everything that happened over the day and spend extra time writing it up at the end of their shift.
“This gives us a more detailed understanding of people’s experiences with our support. It also empowers us to be more responsive to people’s needs. We know if anything has happened out in the community. If something’s gone wrong, we can instantly see it. So, we can prepare back at the service for their return, rather than the support worker having to phone whilst trying to support at the same time. It makes the whole process smoother because we can instantly see the updates, which removes a lot of scrambling around with phone calls and paper documents for everyone involved!”
How does Nourish improve your ability to engage with families and wider circles of care?
“It’s been really helpful for families,” said Kate. “For example, two of our families are very interested in what their loved ones are doing, but for different reasons. I download the interaction report on a Monday and send it to them, and the feedback is really nice.
“One family had some personal concerns regarding health and treatment. Because the Nourish report goes into so much detail, they were able to get an in-depth insight into their loved one’s life, which made a huge difference to them and was very reassuring.
“With the other family, they are interested in the activities that their loved one is doing. So, because we can tell them what they’ve done with such detail, it paints a much more complete picture of the lived experience. When it’s documented like that, it’s more formal, but in a more fun way than just a standard report and we still have control over the information that families are able to access.”
“This all ties back into the National Care Group vision,” added Sarah McCann. “Our guiding values are: respect, passion, collaboration and empowerment. All the examples Kate’s talked about really demonstrate those values, particularly those of empowerment, respect and collaboration. It shows how Nourish aligns with our values and helps us to deliver on them.”
How does Nourish help you make better use of your data?
“The ability to view interactions over time and track trends has been a gamechanger for us,” said Kate. “For example, we’ve looked at things like moods; how people were, what was happening at that time, what happened maybe the day before, or the day before that, and it’s really easy just to look through and look at patterns of behaviour.
“There are so many useful reports that you can pull from Nourish. We have looked at things like the timeline, the support plan, etc. Then you can relate them back to one another to gain better insights into our support. As another example, regarding PRN medication, and when people just need a little extra to calm down. It is easy to state our case and justify our decision. ‘They had this medication and anxiety has dropped. Then you can add extra context by going back a couple of days, just to have a look at the trends with that what happens on that day, what happened the day before? What could have influenced that? It’s just easy to navigate and use.”
How does Nourish support your evidencing practices?
“We recently had the local authority inspect us,” said Kate, “and they looked at Nourish and how we use it. Funnily, they said it’s the most popular platform being used in our county, so they could navigate Nourish and find what they needed easily. I was able to give them the laptop and I did a little bit of guiding around, but they’d used it before. It was quite nice as I haven’t got to keep going off to find documents. I haven’t got to think ‘oh my god did that person fill that in?’ ‘Where have they filed it?’ All those things that kind of go through my head when the inspectors turn up, ‘Where’s that?’ ‘Which cupboard are those in?’
“It’s all there in Nourish and they can easily get it themselves. I don’t need to be leaning over their shoulder. They’re doing it independently, looking at all the interactions, what people are up to, what they’re eating, etc. So all those kinds of food menus, food choices, activity planners, all those kinds of things that I’d be running around the house trying to find for them to look at to show the quality of our support, it is all there ready to go in Nourish.
“It’s illustrative of our service too. Especially with the way the team uses it and how they’re documenting everything as well. At first, the notes were very clinical, because of how they were writing things. I wanted to make it a bit more fun, you know, make it more like how it was on paper. I told my team ‘Don’t worry about all the big words and just let it flow’. They’re more confident in doing that now, because it’s more natural. The ability to voice record notes has been fantastic for some of our support workers as well. With notes being updated and completed throughout the day, our team saves time, and we get more detailed, co-produced feedback and information.”
How was onboarding onto Nourish for your team?
“It was very straightforward,” explained Kate. I went on the training course the previous year. So I kind of had the ins and outs of how Nourish works, and how it looks. The trainer was really good. She obviously did a good job because I was able to go and put all the support plans and everything else we needed on Nourish from the beginning!
“I was able to really big it up to our team, so they were hyped to get their hands on it. A couple of people had used it previously before in other organisations as well, so they became our super users.”
What were the positive benefits you noticed for your team once Nourish was implemented?
“It saves so much time,” said Kate, “and we’re getting more meaningful notes. There are no gaps missing. Some support workers go out and they might be out for six hours doing an activity. Then when they come back, they’re writing in five- or six-hours of notes. Whereas now they’re instantly doing it. So, it’s more meaningful. And again, they save time when they come back. After a long active day, the last thing you want to be doing is sitting there for 20 minutes writing a whole diary of the day out. So, saving time and improving our notes are two major benefits we noticed quickly.”
What benefits have you, as a registered manager, experienced from Nourish?
“From my perspective,” said Kate, “I am temporarily covering some supported living services that are an hour and a half away from where I am right now. Quite often I’ve got a query from a social worker. ‘Can you tell me what happened here? ‘What activities were they doing?’ or one recently was the around food for an individual. Because that service uses Nourish as well, I can jump on, and I can see what’s going on and explain it to them. It’s saved me so much time and I’m no longer annoying people by ringing them to find out what happened on such and such a day because I have a specific query. That’s been really, really helpful for me.”
