We chat to Samantha Crawley, CEO of Bracebridge Care and Director of The Outstanding Society.  

She talks about why registered managers strive for Outstanding, and the impact of the culture of a service on CQC ratings. Samantha also shares some great ideas about how to tackle difficult team dynamics and she how uses an assessment centre approach to help with recruitment. You can also find out why she gives a free audio book subscription to managers in all her homes.  

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• Culture toolkit

Series 4 Episode 1: What is your favourite chocolate bar?

Series 4 kicks off with a fascinating conversation alongside Neil Eastwood, CEO and founder of Care Friends recorded with a live audience!  

Listen to Neil talk about the secrets to recruitment including having a narrow and wide focus on attracting job applicants and how to connect with people in your local community. Neil also shares lots of tips on how to improve your recruitment and retention processes including texting, hosting a dog show, reserving parking spaces, welcome cards and even providing a favourite chocolate bar! 

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Recruitment and retention in adult social care: Secrets of success 

Values-based recruitment

I Care…Ambassadors 

In the final episode of this series, we are joined by Zoe Fry OBE from the Outstanding Society who is also the host of the ‘Care Insights’ podcast. Together we look back at guests that have featured on both podcasts, and we reflect on the importance of positive leadership, leading by example and having a good workplace culture. We also discuss the benefits of looking outwards and learning from others.

We talk to Aeon Anderson from the African Caribbean Community Initiative about lots of things including:

Aeon has been the Chair of the Registered Managers Network for a number of years now and was nominated for the West Midlands Registered Manager of the year award 2023. Aeon has received numerous awards including:

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Good Oaks Home Care is the first UK carbon neutral home care company. Ben Ashton, the co-founder and director joins us to talk about what you have to do to become carbon neutral, why it is so important and how it fits so well with values-based recruitment and retention. Ben also talks about his positive experiences and shares his learnings of recruiting internationally.

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GoodOaks Academy offer a free online e-learning platform for the care sector, from registered managers to informal carers. Topics range from Healthy Eating in Older People through to Having Difficult Conversations. For more information take a look at the website.   

As registered managers, it’s easy to get caught up in the daily running of the service and not be aware of the bigger strategic changes taking place.

Jo-Anne Wilson, the registered manager of a Royal British Legion Nursing home joins us to talk about her work with the Integrated Care Board and the Social Care Nursing Advisory Council, being part of a documentary on dementia care and how she supports staff wellbeing with her 300 staff.

Jo-Anne has a huge passion for raising the profile of social care and, of course, we couldn’t chat to Jo-Anne without asking her about getting her recent MBE from King Charles!

Don’t forget you can nominate your colleagues for the Chief Nurse Adult Social Care Award which is open to all social care workers and nursing working in Social Care in England.

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We talk about compassionate leadership with Rosemary Pavoni who is a retired registered manager. She believes that “It doesn’t matter the colour of the cat as long as it catches the mouse” – in other words, it doesn’t matter why you practice compassionate leadership as long as it achieves its goal.

Rosemary talks about her career and how she learnt that compassionate leadership is crucial in staff wellbeing, retention and in creating safe supported cultures. She discusses learning from mistakes, the importance of learning and development for new managers and how she misses being part of a team.

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How do you become rated Outstanding in all five domains – not once but three times?   

Hayley Taylor and Dan Gower-Smith from Avenues South East join the care exchange and talk about how they did just that. They share how they ensured that their values are embedded into everything they do throughout the organisation, the importance of culture and the work they do with families. They share the ‘smile moments’ they have experienced and the importance of celebrating the things that do go well, but also talk about learning from things that don’t go to plan and how they love to use a spreadsheet for everything!

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Multi award winning registered manager Ben Miller from Castleford House joins the care exchange for an extended chat about making continuing improvements to his service, to his recruitment strategy and to his role as a leader.

Ben shares how his thirst for learning has resulted in a complete transformation of recruitment, retention and culture within his service. He talks about how he has used podcasts and research about social care and other sectors to think about how to make changes and offers some top tips about how managers can use social media to both recruit staff and showcase the excellent work they have done within their service. 

Watch Ben talk about the changes he made to his recruitment and retention strategy in a recording made prior to coming on The care exchange.

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Paul Tolley, CEO of New Directions Rugby, shares how much he loves data and the importance of using workforce data within your service. He talks about partnerships - partnerships with volunteers, your local communities and other registered managers and the added value this provides to your service. We also hear how important it is to be part of your local community, how peer partnerships can prepare you for CQC inspections and how partnerships can ensure that you are proud of your service.

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