The care exchange from Skills for Care

Listen to Lindsay talk about her work for QCS and what she commonly sees in both 'good' and 'outstanding' services.  She gives some great tips on effectively auditing and making improvements. We also talk about her passion project around falls based on best practice research around falls risk assessment and how a 'falls huddle' can make a difference.  

Resources

External resources on the falls project  

We talk to Leah Smith, Chief People Officer at Berkley Care Group about their focus and strategy on neurodiversity. It’s estimated that 15-20% of the social care workforce identify as neurodivergent in some way. 

She talks about some of the cost-effective changes they have made to their recruitment processes including providing interview questions in advance and offering video or audio application options and walking interviews. Leah also discusses how this focus has led to a positive impact on the culture of the organisation with improved employee engagement and retention. 

In the podcast, Leah refers to a couple of resources which were a book called ‘NeuroTribes: The legacy of autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently’ and a website ‘Neurodiversity at work’. 

Resources 

• Values-based recruitment 

Series 5 of the care exchange has launched with a special live episode chatting to James Bullion from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

James covers many different topics including talking about his role as Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care at the CQC. Listen as he speaks about the CQC’s plans for making improvements, how it is important to learn from things going wrong and how to ensure consistency.

Resources

• The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care

Our final episode of the current series of the care exchange, we are joined by Zoe Fry OBE from the Outstanding Society.   

Hear Pia, Wendy and Zoe reflect on previous episodes and discuss lots of interesting topics including: 

• Different ways to train leaders and staff  

• Proactively preparing staff for CQC assessments   

• Having conversations about LGBTQ+

Listen to Claire Callaghan talking about why her staff never want to leave and how she has not spent a penny on recruitment in years.  She credits this to a great recruitment process, a person-centred induction and a ‘listen to’ culture.  Claire also talks about their organisational commitment to diversity in the workplace and the support they provide around LGBTQ+, neurodiversity and menopause 

Resources

Induction toolkit (skillsforcare.org.uk) 

Data and publications (skillsforcare.org.uk) 

Using social media for care recruitment (skillsforcare.org.uk) 

Listen to Colin Scott talking about how he has used the Skills for Care LGBTQ+ learning framework in his care home for older people to create a culture where people can be themselves.  

Colin is the registered home manager of The Maples Residential Care Home, and he talks about  

how he has made changes throughout the service with surprising results and how he has worked to engage people, their families and the staff. Colin also encourages placements and volunteer opportunities for younger people and discusses how this benefits his service 

Resources 

• Confident with difference 

Hear from Isabel De La Haye, a recently qualified solicitor who talks a lot about the new CQC assessment and shares her tips on how you can prepare for any forthcoming assessment by understanding your current position. She talks about the importance of checking the factual accuracy of your CQC report and understanding how your rating is created.  

Resources:

• Data Security and Protection eLearning - Digital Care Hub 

Maddie Watts, the owner and Registered manager of the outstanding rated Inchwater home care chats to us about the preparation she is doing for assessment under the new single assessment framework and how to evidence good practice for CQC. Maddie talks about evidencing feedback of partnership working with other professionals and the benefits of reflective conversations to the continuous improvement journey. 

Resources

• Go Guide: Single Assessment Framework edition (skillsforcare.org.uk) 

We chat to Jodie Allen-Cawley, Head of Quality and Health and Safety at Lifeways.   

Jodie talks about why co-production is the key to providing quality care and how it works in partnership with the people you provide care to. She explores how the ‘I statements’ and ‘we statements’ align with the new CQC Single Assessment Framework and, as a quality lead, how to evidence personalisation and co-production.  

Jodie also shares the huge range of co-production initiatives and processes that are taking place at Lifeways from their quality checkers, to involving people in the recruitment process and embedding co-production as day-to-day business within the culture of the organisation.  

“Ensure the people you support are at the heart of everything you do, then build outwards from that.” 

Stephen Forster joins the Care Exchange to talk about his success in recruiting 1000s of care workers. He shares his top tips on attracting workers, including how to create an amazing recruitment journey for each candidate and how to reduce no shows. We also chat about sending top tips to candidates before interview, creating attractive job adverts and value-based retention. 

Resources

• DBS checks (skillsforcare.org.uk)