A week in the life of a care home Quality and Compliance Manager: using digital in Social Care part 2
Those of you who read my first blog will know that I have a varied role working as Quality and Compliance Manager for Canford Healthcare, as well as being a Registered Nurse and HR professional. Carry on reading to see what a typical start to my week is like.
Monday
It's time for one of home's Desktop Audits (DTA) ahead of an interdisciplinary meeting to discuss compliance against a set of standards agreed within Canford Healthcare, in line with Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations. The audit gathers information from various pieces of software that we use to aid oversight and best-practice care planning for residents within our homes. We refer to the people we support as residents - it's their home after all, and they reside there. We currently use Person-Centred Software care planning, Atlas EMAR and the Blaucomm Call Bell alert system, all of which facilitate safe and effective support and care for our residents. The beauty of this technology is that it enables staff to spend more unhurried, quality time with residents, rather than staff having to rush off to locate documents and write on paper - yes, paper...it does still exist, I believe!
Whilst performing the audit I receive several calls from the homes asking for assistance with the care planning system, uploading reports and even how to switch a hand-held device out of flight mode and back to the company Wi-Fi!
Next on today's busy agenda is an insurance review meeting. We look at all accident forms received through the online reporting forms (also created using the Microsoft 365 forms app linked into Power BI) and rag rate these according to the risk of claims, looking for lessons learnt and areas for improvement.
One meeting finishes and then I'm on to the next. This time, it's a group catering session to review this month's return of nutritional audits, which are completed on forms with visuals in Power BI. We are looking to see if we should take any action relating to weight loss, gain or make changes to diets. Talking of food and fluis, it's time for me to have a refreshing cup of decaf tea - perfect!
Before I know it it's already 4pm and I have one hour left to complete the full DTA. Of course, it took longer than that and I was late finishing it. But that's actually OK - the audit is complete and, and the score is set. I think I will have a happy team tomorrow when I give them feedback from the audit findings.
Tuesday
It's an early start. I’m in the car battling through the M25 from the south coast to reach one of our care homes. I start by walking about the home and chatting with residents and staff (my favourite part of the day). I also look about at the environment and ensure that all residents are receiving care and support as they should before the Audits, Compliance and Effectiveness meeting (known as ACE) starts. During this meeting I give positive feedback to the team, we discuss an action plan of areas for development, and it’s all rounded off by further encouragement after a job well done. After a quick cup of tea, I’m back on the road home. It’s not been a very digital day but face to face is a very important part of my job, too. I get through the door at around 7pm, enjoy a take-away and put my feet up ready for Netflix.
Keep an eye out for my next blog to see what a typical Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is like!