The importance of investing in care staff, making sure they are trained, recognized, and feel part of a bigger team

Cheryl:
I'm Cheryl Bard, Director of Quality and Care for Orchard Care Homes. We've got 23 nursing and residential care homes across predominately the north of the country. We've got over 50% of our residents living with dementia. They were sort of like the invisible community. Our mission at the moment is to give these people their voice back.

Shaked:
What do you think is the key to deliver quality care?

Cheryl:
It's investing in your staff, making sure that they are fully supported, trained and recognized. Having the ability to really support a person in care. That's what carers want to do. They don't want to be tied up with the politics. The reams and reams of reports and documentation. We've tried to remove those barriers, so care staff can actually spend that meaningful time with residents. I think that's really important, Giving them a career pathway, I started as a carer, I was quite happy doing that. I was given the opportunity to progress and to learn, which sparked my interest further, which then, you know, I was supported to go on and train further. I think having a career pathway is really important.

Shaked:
How do you know, measure or make sure that the carers actually feel that they are well trained, well led,

Cheryl:
Yeah.

Shaked:
And they feel part of a bigger team?

Cheryl:
Get regular feedback from teams. We're completely electronic, so we get electronic feedback that I can look at and any of the senior leadership team can look at. We go into the homes and we speak to staff. We have multiple different ways that our care team can contact any one of us, including the chief executive. You know, they can pick up the phone and have a chat with them.

Shaked:
And do you think that impacts the retention rate?

Cheryl:
Yeah, I think so. It's really important to get everybody's views on their workplace and their home. If you ignore that, it's going to be a failure. You know, you have to take everybody's thoughts and values on board. Sometimes you can do something about it, sometimes you can't. But actually having those conversations and those open lines of communication with your staff. It’s hard work emotionally and physically, and I think that needs recognizing. As leaders we need to be able to make their job as enjoyable as possible.

Shaked:
And how do you manage to get to each and every of your carers when you have so many carers, Right? How do you actually make sure, first of all, to train the mid management level, to deliver this type of experience and foster this type of culture and also for the front carer to actually get this type of training, this type of treatment that they can really deliver the feedback and know that someone close the loop with them, that their feedback got received and someone took care of that.

Cheryl:
A big part of it is the induction process, making sure that a person has a really good onboarding experience and then that is followed through. So we've trained up a number of buddies in the care homes to go through that induction, but also to have somebody to go to to tell ‘I'm not happy about this.’ ‘I don't feel equipped to do this.’ We do regular surveys, regular feedback sessions. The chief executive does a group call every couple of months where every single member of staff is invited on to that call. We've got things like a nurse forum. We are a very open and transparent organization. The home managers have got a really good relationship with their ops directors. So there's different levels and there's different lines of communication that carers can tap into if they're not happy.

Shaked:
How do you measure the success of your training?

Cheryl:
We measure things like distress response, emotional support incident forms, so we measure all that. The audits are really focused on outcomes and we can see those outcomes improving as the training becomes embedded. Our training doesn't stop with we just go in and train and walk away. There's a continuous coaching and mentoring approach. We do a big session on the on the law, especially, you know, Mental capacity act. I think some people they can be a little bit frightened of that. So we go back in and just make sure they feel comfortable doing the assessments and things like that.

Shaked:
You're using and implementing AI tools.

Cheryl:
Yes

Shaked:
What's the purpose of that?

Cheryl:
We are completely digital. We've got our care management system, our electronic audit system, we implemented the pain check AI technology, which can, it basically gives those people who can't verbalize their pain a way of letting us know that actually that they are in pain. All of those elements has supported the care staff to deliver evidence based at the point of care, brilliant, you know, support and help to produce those support care plans that were lacking, especially around pain. Everybody just has a has a better experience.

Shaked:
Why do you think it's so difficult to recruit care staff today?

Cheryl:
The pay, I think has an impact. There's been a quite a negative view on care staff and some very unhelpful remarks that they were unskilled. They are extremely skilled individuals and I think that can put people off. And actually, if you're going to get paid a couple of pounds more to work in a less stressful environment, even if your heart is really in wanting to care for people, you've got to balance the books at home.

Shaked:
Key tip or a piece of advice to people who want to start a way in care homes or in the care sector.

Cheryl:
There is such a brilliant opportunity for career progression, and I think if you can find an organization that's going to see you through from carer to nurse to director, the world is your oyster really. It's stressful sometimes, but the benefits of it I think far outweigh the negatives.