The Stable Family Home Trust has been using Nourish since 2018 across Hampshire and Dorset. The Stable Family Home Trust (SFHT) is a Registered Charity that supports people with learning disabilities. They offer a wide range of services including residential homes, personal development programmes and supported living services.
We caught up with SFHT to find out how they’ve been using Nourish and what benefits they’ve seen since implementing digital care planning.
How do you think Nourish has helped to enhance quality care at SFHT?
It has greatly improved the management of time, as well as improving handovers amongst the team. Managers are alerted to concerns wherever they are working rather than having to go to their property to receive the paperwork.
Would you say that information is more accessible with Nourish?
Yes absolutely, rather than staff having to go through folders which were under lock and key and taking a lot of time doing so, staff can now log in and access individual clients documents as well as company templates at the click of the button. They can also work with clients on completing their personal records, involving them in the care that is being provided and recorded.
What have you found to be the biggest time-saving feature of Nourish?
The tick boxes that are enabled on certain interactions has been a huge time saver. Also, staff having the ability to see the whole day and receive briefings from management as to what is required on that shift.
How long did it take for you to notice that Nourish was making a difference?
Not long at all, with anything there is a period where staff and clients get used to the system, but we instantly saved money on paper, had more transparency when it came to a clients’ diet, activities undertaken and medication administration.
Our CEO and Director of Operations could also pop on at any point and see what has been happening each day, without having to talk to the manager or co-ordinator.
What concerns did you have about making the switch and how did Nourish help you overcome these fears?
The staff were hesitant at first, we were a paper-based company but eager to come into the 21st Century and with that, reduce our impact on the environment, lessen the need for storage facilities and ease compliance with GDPR and Data Protection thanks to the ability to have individual logins and managing access levels.
What has the on-going support been like since going live with Nourish?
The team at Nourish have been fantastic, our main contacts have been Nathan and Farrah who have been super helpful, as well as offering additional support throughout the pandemic. The chat facility is also very helpful and helps us get answers to queries quickly.
Is there a task that has greatly improved since using Nourish and what feature has helped improve it?
Communication has greatly improved. It has encouraged staff to give each other information and support, but also enables other staff to understand how others complete a task successfully when working with clients without being on the same shift as each other.
What is your favourite feature of Nourish?
It has to be the ability to handover any interaction, as well as the alerts on interactions. The newly developed emergency services crib sheet is also such a brilliant innovation.
How has Nourish helped you to report on the care your service is providing for CQC purposes?
We understand from CQC inspections that they hold Nourish in high regard, we believe that Nourish offers complete transparency. Each client has a timeline of expected interactions and if these aren’t being delivered we need to action this immediately or be able to explain why.
Preparing for audits and reviews is much less daunting now. Using the Nourish Reporting function allows us to easily create bespoke reports and download them, plus there is now a clear audit trail of every interaction within our care service.