Spring is on the horizon, and we are ready to bloom into 2024! The best part of social care are the people, and we are very excited by the chance to meet folks in person and connect with them. We have four big shows coming up over the next three months taking us around England. With so much to do and see we have put together these brief overviews of the events for you, we look forward to seeing you!

When: 11-12 March

Where: Wyboston Lakes, Bedfordshire

Stand: 3

The National Care Forum (NCF) and Skills for Care, in collaboration with ARC England, host their annual Managers Conference to champion and support managers working in all care and support settings that social care provides. The event contains workshops, seminars and networking, all tailored towards managers sharing their ideas, experiences, and ambitions for the future. As always, the conversation will be driven by the challenges driving managers and will include a specific focus on working, diversity and inclusion, delivering outstanding care, and digital social care.

Tickets for the event have sold out, but you can sign up for the waitlist to stay informed if any become available before the event.

When: 14 March

Where: Church House Conference Centre, London

Stand: Stand 20

Care England are one of the most prominent and influential organisations in social care. Their annual conference represents the chance to dive into the details of your service with other providers and a host of suppliers. Find answers that satisfy the specifics of your service, as well as some major talking points on the main stage including talks from leading figures in the DHSC, CQC and ADASS.

The workshops are intimate and offer limited capacity. Make sure you register for them early and secure your place. With two timeslots during the day and four options each timeslot there is always the opportunity to learn something beneficial for your business.

We will be running a session ourselves at 2pm in the Sir Herbert Baker Room. Tandeep Gill from PainChek and Saurabh Shah from Camascope will be joining our Director of Partnerships Denise Tack, so if you want to learn more about the power of integrations and the potential of interoperability in social care make sure you stop by!

When: 20-21 March

Where: The NEC, Birmingham

Stand: L20

UK Care Week is a perfect forum of the future of social care. Their tradition of evolving with the time to best reflect the interests and needs of the sector makes the trip to Birmingham

well worth the effort. The event is inclusive of the whole care industry and features insights on staff recruitment and retention, providing staff support, accessing finance, offering training and promoting employee wellbeing to name but a few. We are especially excited to see what our friend James Tugendhat, HC-One’s CEO has to say, as well as Minister for Social Care Helen Whatley and CEO of Homecare Association Dr Jane Townson.

When: 24-25 April

Where: ExCeL, London

Stand: J20

Health Plus Care was a longstanding staple in the social care calendar, and now as we welcome the newly dubbed Care Show London into the fold, we are very curious to see what other changes the organisation team have put together.

Care Shows are known for their big atmosphere and wealth of opportunities. Care Show London continues this tradition in the heart of the capital, bringing together all disciplines and denizens of Social Care. You can find a discussion on anything and everything, policy, data, regulations, workforce, financial management, mental health and more.

Care Show London is one of the biggest shows of the year and we will be bringing a big team to make sure we are available for you throughout the two days.

Nourish will also be taking to the stage ourselves in the Technology Theatre on April 24th 11.45 – 12.15pm and joining The Outstanding Society on their stage.

To find out more about our events, head to our event page here.

From Rabbie Burns to Rab C Nesbit, it is well established that Scotland can be a cold and beautiful place. A land where the balance between nature and community is as vital as it is definitive. One of the joys of working with home care providers across the UK and Ireland is that we get to interact with and learn from people in a wide variety of worlds. Recently we learned of a crucial campaign being run by Carr Gomm alongside the Argyll and Bute services.

We caught up with the campaign organiser, Denise Murdoch, to learn more about their ‘Keep Warm Boxes’ and the impact it’s having on the community.

We caught up with the campaign organiser, Denise Murdoch, to learn more about their ‘Keep Warm Boxes’ and the impact it’s having on the community.

Denise is the Senior Operations Manager of Carr Gomm’s teams in Highland and Argyll & Bute. Over the past few months she noticed that power cuts and rising fuel prices were impacting the people in her area.

“One of the staff called me in the morning and said they were called out to an elderly gentleman during the night who had fallen out of bed,” explained Denise. “By the time they got to him his legs were blue with the cold! So the first thing they did after checking him over was say ‘We’re going to put your heating on in your bedroom.’ He said; ‘No, don’t, because I’ve got a bill there for £300.’ You know the way you can get government help excetera, that didn’t matter to him. All he saw was this bill for £300 and didn’t know how he was going to pay it. So his first reaction to that was to turn his heating off.”

Denise knew she had to act. Heating everyone’s homes wasn’t an option, unfortunately. Most of the people who use Carr Gomm’s care in the area have warm beds, but Denise did not like the prospect of confining people to them for even longer. It was her goal to help people stay warm during the day, and to prepare them for future power cuts.

This inspired Denise to create ‘Warm Boxes,’ support packages filled with useful items to help people stay warm. She had to create her own solutions since there were no existing options.

“Carr Gomm have Carr Gomm Futures and it’s [a source of] money that’s been fundraised. It’s for staff to apply for initiatives. I applied and they awarded me £3000, which was a lot of money! But there are six localities in Argyll and Bute. So that was £500 per locality. We started buying the items. In each box we put a warm blanket, a hat, a flask, a torch, socks, and gloves, if required.”

It was time for Denise to spread the word, but she wasn’t quite prepared for the response she got.

“We put it up on social media and it turned into nearly a full time job for the first two weeks with requests. The requests are coming from dementia workers, advocates, social workers. What surprised us was neighbours referring people, what surprised us was how many people don’t receive support.

“So we started delivering the boxes and it’s just been overwhelming. It’s been quite an eye opener to how many different types of people have requested a warm box.”

Denise and her team are committed to supporting their community, and have delivered Warm Boxes to a huge range of people in need of support. Their goal being to be prepared for what’s coming and not just responsive to what has happened.

Cold snaps and power cuts make for a deadly combination. A reality heightened by the constant focus on rising energy bills in the media.

“People tend to, when there’s a power cut, they react. So it’s all; ‘Oh where was the torch? Oh there’s no batteries in it. Where are those extra blankets?’ So it’s about preparing for things like a power cut.

“So it’s the eventualities of, say, you live in a big old house that’s draughty and not thinking that a hot water bottle would be a good idea to have or an extra blanket. Put on an extra pair of socks, put on a hat and reserve some of your body heat.”

Denise and Carr Gomm are working hard to provide their community with access to these ‘Keep Warm Boxes.’ They are available on request for anyone in the area, without means testing. The focus is on supporting those in need and in several circumstances it has been caring neighbours and relatives who have requested boxes on behalf of people they know.

“We are now hoping if we can get more funding, that we have extra boxes in each locality, so they can just get out to people as soon as something happens. Now just as we’re making up boxes, people are asking for them. So my wish is that we have up to six boxes in each locality ready.”

You can donate to the ‘Keep Warm Boxes’ appeal here

Learn more about the appeal here

You can request a ‘Keep Warm Box’ by emailing: warmbox@carrgomm.org