Care Home Management magazine Jan/Feb 2018

Care Home www.chmonline.co.uk

January/February 2018

Management

The Great Care Home Fees Robbery….

CMA demands reform Care King’s Fund calls for enhanced healthcare in homes

Training Hospice scheme for end of life care

Communication The podcast leading to ‘Outstanding’

Issue 71

Editor’s Letter

Care Home Management January/February 2018

Issue 71

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Happy New Year - welcome to the January/February edition of Care Home Management

S

o here we go again. The start of a new year and I must begin by wishing all our readers – whether you are reading a copy of the magazine or reading it digitally or

Editor/Publisher Alan Rustad

online – a very Happy New Year to you. Here’s hoping for a successful 2018 for the

Design/Production Phil Cunningham www.creative-magazine-designer.co.uk

care home industry.

To look back just for a moment, 2017 certainly went out with quite a bang with three particular news items. First of all the long awaited Competition and Markets Authority report on care homes was published and it pulled few punches.

Published by JNJ Media Ltd Croham Lodge, Croham Road, Crowborough East Sussex TN6 2RH

It highlighted the underfunding of the industry in general and made plain what we have all known. Self-payers are subsidising those residents paid for by local authorities.

In other words self-payers are not only paying for their own care. They are making up for

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the underfunding of social care. A disgrace – it cannot be allowed to continue.

Other elements of the CMA’s findings are covered in the following pages. It was

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good to see its warm welcome from industry figures even if it didn’t give operators a

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Seasons was saved from catastrophe – not too strong a word – at the last minute and

Copyright: Care Home Management Magazine 2018

completely clean bill of health. Action against some is promised. We shall be watching developments.

The other two stories concerned three of the leading players in care homes. Four now has until February to arrange a restructuring package which will need approval in April. Just a short reprieve or can Four Seasons debt problems finally be solved?

And Bupa and HC-One finally concluded their deal that sees 110 Bupa homes move to HC-One. Here’s hoping that goes smoothly for the benefit of the people who matter

The Publisher holds all copyright and any items within may not be reproduced in any way, for any purpose, without the written permission of the Publisher. While every care has been taken to ensure accuracy, the information contained within this publication is based on submissions to the Publishers who cannot be held responsible for errors and omissions. The publisher does not necessarily agree with the views expressed by contributors and cannot except responsibility for claims made by manufacturers and authors, nor do they accept any responsibility for any errors in the subject matter of this publication.

Care Home www.chmonline.co.uk

January/February 2018

most – the residents.

So what of 2018? The big event will be the Government’s publication this summer of a Green Paper on the future of social care. It was originally scheduled for last autumn but we must live in hope that this time some sensible thinking will be done and a clear way forward is proposed. It is a big job. It will be met with great anticipation.

I hope you enjoy this first issue of 2018 – it promises to be a big year and we will be bringing you all the news in these pages and online.

Don’t forget you can keep up to date with the very latest care home news via our website – www.chmonline.co.uk and feel free to give us your take on any issues that

Management

concern you at editorial@jnjmedia.co.uk

editorial@jnjmedia.co.uk

The Great Care Home Fees Robbery….

CMA calls for reform Care King’s Fund calls for enhanced healthcare in homes

Training Hospice scheme for end of life care

Communication The podcast leading to ‘Outstanding’

Front cover illustrated by Archie Cunningham

Issue 71

@Carehomemanage

Alan Rustad Publisher/Editor

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 3

Contents

12

CMA verdict 6 Industry welcomes hard hitting report

15 Care Paramedics learn the ropes

8 Four Seasons Stay of execution brings relief

16 Birthday Prime Minister drops in on Irene

Employment 10 Avery launches new staff package

17 Care Home Awards New date – new venue announced

Care 11 Half of beds in parts of England not up to scratch Business 12 Property specialist issues start warning Ratings 14 The best and worse places to receive care

15 4 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

18 Enhanced Care King’s Fund highlights ways forward 20 CMA report Details in full – and what now?

22 Intergenerational Dropping in on where it all began 25 Podcast Helping to get to outstanding

16

25

Inquests 26 Care homes need to heed their responsibilities Interior Design 28 Still a place for carpets Hygiene 30 Handwashing to keep the germs away Data 32 Are you ready for GDPR? 34 End of Life Hospice offers training for care home staff Construction 35 Getting the right land agreement when opting for new build

35

Events and Appointments 36 Where to go and latest movers

News

Industry welcomes CMA report The care home industry has welcomed the Competition and Markets Authority’s report as a means of increasing consumer protection, providing better information and boosting the fragile care home sector.

The CMA called for reform of the care home sector so that people should get the support they need in their old age. It is also taking action against some homes.

The main findings of the year-long market study were: • The current system for providing care is not sustainable without additional funding.

• The sector must grow substantially as the population ages but uncertainty about future funding, including whether council fees will cover the full costs of care, means that there is not enough investment.

• Basic information and support in choosing homes is not available to help them make informed choices.

• There needs to be greater protection in place for people in care homes.

(For full details of the CMA’s findings see our centre pages) Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England said: “The CMA’s year-long study provides in depth analysis that will, we hope, give the impetus to the Government to recognise the importance of fair funding and proportionate regulation. As monopsony purchasers, the role and influence of local authorities on providers market and consumer choice is very significant. We as a sector will examine each recommendation.

“Choice is imperative; however as the report makes clear, choice is not always possible when there is poor commissioning. The CMA

recommends an independent body to oversee fees; this body needs to have teeth and the authority to compel local authorities to pay given that the market shaping duties have clearly failed.

“If the market continues without a considerable funding injection or better commissioning practice, the closure of care home providers will limit choice and competition”.

Janet Morrison, chief executive of Independent Age, the older people’s charity, said: “The care home sector urgently needs reform and the CMA’s findings add further evidence of the need to put in place a long-term solution, while also addressing the needs of older people in receipt of care today.

“The green paper promised next year must address the systemic problems described in this report if it is to provide a meaningful solution to the social care crisis. However, it’s imperative that the government acts on these recommendations in the short term too and urgently addresses the widening funding gap that results in many older people being denied the care they so desperately need.”

The Chair of the Independent

Care Group, Mike Padgham said: “The report from the CMA is welcome and is yet another wake-

6 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

up call to the Government that the current system is in crisis and unless something is done about it quickly the 1.2 million people currently going without the care they need is going to rocket.

“The recent budget contained nothing to help social care and we are now left in limbo, waiting for a Green Paper that won’t come out until next summer.”

Nadra Ahmed of the National Care Association said: “Funding is of course primary and the cuts to local authority budgets have had a crippling effect on the working relationship of commissioners and providers. Clearly tax payer providers have enormous sympathy with local government but that does not in any way come close to the issues faced by the providers across the country who continue to deliver exceptional care despite the challenges.”

Care homes market study Final report

30 November

2017

News

Four Seasons is given breathing space Four Seasons Health Care has been given a reprieve over a major debt repayment which threatened the care home company’s future.

The group, which has 370 care homes and almost 20,000 beds had been due to make an interest payment of £26 million just before Christmas. It did not have enough money to make the payment.

The debt was owed to H/2 Capital Partners, who at almost the last moment agreed that Four Seasons, which employs more than 25,000 people, would prepare a restructuring plan by 7 February and gain approval for the strategy by 2 April.

Four Seasons said the delay “ensures continuity of care for Four Seasons’ residents” and stability for its employees.

Four Seasons was bought by the private equity firm Terra Firma in 2012 for £825 million, the majority of which was made up of bond debt which carries regular interest payments. Terra Firma sold the debt to H/2 Capital Partners and has subsequently offered

to hand over the keys of the business to the fund manager.

Robbie Barr, chairman of Four Seasons, said the company is “very pleased to have reached a standstill agreement with H/2”.

He added: “The standstill gives a period of stability for the company and its stakeholders but most importantly

Andrea Sutcliffe

for our residents, patients, their families and our employees.”

The Care Quality Commission had been forced to step in to ensure that Four Seasons reached an agreement.

Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, said: “The Care Quality Commission has been consistently clear that people using any adult social care service, their families and carers, should be able to expect that the service will provide good quality care which can be sustained into the future.

“Through our market oversight function, we will continue to closely track progress with the ongoing restructuring discussions until such time that they are satisfactorily concluded. Our market oversight regulatory responsibility is to advise local authorities if we believe that services are likely to be disrupted as a result of business failure.

“I would like to confirm at this point in time we do not believe that services are likely to be disrupted as a result of business failure.”

Bupa completes sale of part of UK care home business

David Hynam Bupa have completed the transfer of 110 of its care homes to HC-One under the terms of the agreement announced in August.

Bupa UK chief executive David Hynam said: ‘Providing quality care for the UK’s ageing population continues to be a core part of our UK business.

‘Transferring a number of our care

homes to HC-One enables us to focus our investment on providing high quality care for our residents, both now and in the future.

‘There’ll be minimal changes for residents in these homes, they’ll receive the same care from the same dedicated teams, as Bupa colleagues will remain with each home.

8 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

‘I’d like to thank all our colleagues for the hard work and care they deliver around-the-clock to all of our residents in all of our homes.”

Bupa said it would remain one of the biggest aged care providers in the UK and a major investor with around 125 care homes and seven Richmond Villages, caring for more than 6,000 residents.

Bupa said it was also building four new care homes in England and continues to expand the Richmond Villages portfolio.

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News

Avery Healthcare launches reward and recognition programme Avery Healthcare has implemented a comprehensive employee engagement programme to better reward and recognise its 4,200 workforce.

Avery Healthcare is working with employee services business Personal Group to launch a benefits and recognition hub which takes a more holistic approach to engaging its employees. The scheme, named Averyone, aims to recognise employees for their contribution and ensure they feel appreciated for their hard work.

Personal Group’s Hapi technology is being used – an app that is a one stop shop for health and wellness products, salary sacrifice, discounts and rewards, employee insurance and communications.

Avery Healthcare operates 50 care homes with several new developments in progress.

Managing director John Strowbridge said: “Care operators have a responsibility to deliver the

best possible care for the older generation. It’s not good enough just to meet guidelines – operators need to continuously strive to improve their buildings, services, and quality of care, and to do that they need to invest in their people as well.

“Our culture is something that we’re passionate about, and through Personal Group’s Hapi we can bring many things into one place – benefits, reward and recognition which all have a real impact on our employees and help packages to go even further.”

Steve Mason, business development director at Personal Group added: “We are delighted to work with Avery Healthcare. Employee engagement is of the utmost important and businesses today are realising that by rewarding and recognising staff, it can make a meaningful difference to workplace productivity and staff happiness.”

Meanwhile the company has notched up a first for the adult social care sector with the official

accreditation of their Advanced Senior Carer (ASC) training programme by City & Guilds. The course enables senior carers to extend their skills and to further support and assist nurses to ensure that high quality care is provided for residents.

Avery’s ASC programme aims to raise standards in care and enhance the knowledge and skills of senior carers to take on a specific nurse support role. It provides a clear career pathway for senior carers to progress, including a route towards the new nursing associate role.

The intensive five-month programme is delivered on a blended learning basis, and is comprised of nine clinical modules and two management modules.

Staff assurances as NHG reveal more details of Clinicare merger

Nursing Hygiene Group (NHG) have announced they plan to retain all staff, in all locations as they merge with Clinicare Supplies.

NHG say they have already linked IT and telephone systems and installed video conferencing facilities between all locations so that teams are fully connected.

Bringing teams together, has already benefitted the core business areas such as IT, finance, HR and logistics.

Scott Andrews (left), commercial director said: “The integration process is well underway, and we are excited about what this means for our customers. We are fully focused on creating a stronger organisation, better able to meet the needs of care homes across the UK.” Clinicare customers now have access to a wider range of predesigned furniture and furnishings through the NHG’s Stock 7 brand.

With a range of eight distinctive and tasteful interior schemes, Stock 7 offers

10 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

a complete package that means an entire bedroom can be transformed in just seven working days.

Customers wishing to enhance the look and feel of their homes can also directly access directly the team of interior designers and project managers at NHG.

News

Half of care home beds in parts of England not up to scratch

A lack of good quality care means some parts of the country have more than half of their care home beds in homes rated as requiring improvement or inadequate, according to a new investigation by consumer champion Which?.

Which? analysis of Care Quality Commission data shows that in six local authority areas, good quality care home places are so limited that 50 per cent or more of local beds are in homes rated as requiring improvement or inadequate, making it less likely that people looking to move into a care home will be able to find a good place near where they live.

Which? is urging the Government to ensure it looks at quality, provision and choice in its Green paper.

The existing lack of good quality care is particularly acute in the London borough of Westminster, where seven in 10 (69%) beds were found in care homes rated as requiring improvement or inadequate.

In Manchester and Wakefield, three in five beds (58%) are in care homes that are rated as requiring improvement or inadequate,

closely followed by Kirklees (57%), Portsmouth (56%) and Tameside (55%).

In total, nearly a third (45 councils) of local authority areas have one in three beds or more in poor-quality care homes. Nine of these are in the capital and include Tower Hamlets (48%), Islington (47%), Kensington and Chelsea (46%), Newham (41%), Haringey (41%), Barnet (40%), Ealing (35%) and Harrow (33%).

While the research, which compared the quality of local provision in 151 council areas that provide adult social care, provides some worrying figures, there are a small number of areas where at least nine in 10 care home beds are in homes rated as good or outstanding.

These include the Isles of Scilly (100%) Richmond upon Thames (94%), Rutland (91%) and Blackburn with Darwen (90%).

Overall, the analysis highlights the huge regional variation in the provision of quality local care across the country in the current care market. Which? has already heard from hundreds of relatives of care home residents, who have

highlighted existing problems in the care system. Some have had to wait years to find a suitable care home or have had to place their relative far away, as there was no suitable place available locally.

Which? is warning that this picture could rapidly worsen, as demand starts to outstrip supply in an increasing number of local areas, putting increasing pressure on care home places. Previous Which? research shows that almost nine in 10 council areas across England could see a shortfall in care home places by 2022.

The research also raises questions around whether some councils will be able to continue to meet their statutory duty to offer local authorityfunded individuals at least one suitable care home place that will meet the prospective resident’s needs.

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 11

News

Knight Frank issues stark warning Leading property specialists Knight Frank have issued a stark warning for the future of the care home sector as they look ahead to 2018.

Julian Evans, head of healthcare, says the UK care market is facing an imminent crisis as the sector struggles to cope with a national shortage of beds. But investors still see care homes as an attractive investment “Our research estimates that circa 6,600 care homes are at risk of closure over the next five years, which

equates to 140,000 beds,” he said.

“It will cost approximately £15 billion to build the new homes to replace these beds. We believe that there is c£3.5 billion of UK private equity and c£20 billion of overseas private equity looking to enter the care home market. 2018 could be the year this is at last deployed.

“I also believe that the infrastructure funds and global investors will start to acquire UK healthcare and hotel portfolios as seed platforms for REIT targets.”

Encore enters development partnership with Welltower

David Hines, CEO and Izzy Nicholls Encore Care Homes has reached a partnership agreement with US health care REIT Welltower, giving Welltower the exclusive option to acquire £250million of Encore’s future developments which secures long term care options for the elderly and will allow Encore to continue to design and construct its purposebuilt care homes across the south of England.

Encore, a specialist residential, nursing and dementia care home provider, designs and builds its own private care homes.

Izzy Nicholls, operations and quality director of Encore, said: “We are really proud of the difference that this partnership will make by easing

pressures on the current need for care homes in England. Due to people living longer, the demand for care homes continues to grow and we hope to contribute and help tackle this problem by continuing to design

12 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

and build care homes across the south.

“The care homes, which Welltower may acquire in the future, will continue to operate under the Encore brand and will allow the company to grow; therefore, creating new jobs and opportunities for those in the local community.”

She continued: “We have seen how effective building strong, innovative partnerships with healthcare experts can be to ensure we remain at the forefront of the latest industry advancements, such as our preexisting partnership with the NHS. “This new partnership therefore combines Welltower’s global scale and expertise with our regional knowledge and development experience to create a new approach to care home development.”

Successfully reducing year-on-year infectious outbreaks in a national nursing home group Healthcare associated infection (HCAI) is a global problem. In 2012 the European Centre for Disease Control (ECDC) surveyed just under 20,000 patients across Europe and reported a 7.1% prevalence of HCAI within healthcare facilities. Each year the ECDC estimate over 4 million people are affected

by HCAIs which result in the loss of 16 million bed days and are a direct cause of 37,000 deaths, contributing to a further 110,000 patient deaths.

In financial terms the direct costs alone in Europe account for annual losses of over €7 billion.

across the group, with different sites each using a unique range of products. This added a level of additional complexity with regard to COSHH assessments, stock control / inventory and risk assessment training.

Environmental surfaces within healthcare settings are playing an important role in microbial transmission and cleaner healthcare environments reduce the risk of infection and cross infection for healthcare providers and users. A key complication of D&V outbreaks is how to minimise the number of microbes within the care environment (environmental bioburden) when infected patients are continually seeding the area with billions of microbes every time they vomit or defecate.

Methods and Measurement

Irrespective of geographical location and care setting (primary vs. secondary) it is clear that infections acquired within any healthcare setting place a significant strain on the care facility and ultimately result in an additional – and often avoidable – financial impact on the healthcare provider. The financial ramifications for the provider depend upon; (1) the number of outbreaks; (2) the severity (e.g no. of people affected); (3) duration, (e.g. how long the outbreak lasts).

• Staff communication and defining areas of responsibility

In late 2014 Sunrise Senior Living implemented a new approach to outbreak prevention and management. The project was developed and implemented by the Senior Director for Care and Quality and it involved the following changes to existing practice; • Staff training and education around outbreak management

• Rapid reporting, early intervention and proactive management of any suspected outbreak • Adopting and implementing a new approach to the cleaning and disinfection of any area or location where there was potential contamination of the care environment.

Any initiatives targeted at reducing the frequency, severity and duration of an infection outbreak have the potential to reduce the additional financial burden incurred by healthcare providers when outbreaks occur.

The new approach to cleaning and disinfection is the focus of this report however, it is essential to highlight that all elements of the above outbreak prevention and management ‘care bundle’ are interlinked and therefore the optimal outcome will only be achieved by effectively combining these initiatives together into a joined-up programme.

For the reasons outlined above the Senior Directors at Sunrise Senior Living and Gracewell Healthcare wanted to reduce the number, severity and duration of D&V outbreaks across their 43 elderly, residential, nursing and dementia care facilities within the UK. Each D&V outbreak costs the group approximately £10,000 to fix, depending on severity and duration, therefore any reduction in the number of outbreaks would offer a significant financial benefit to the group.

Prior to implementing the new D&V outbreak prevention and management care bundle the cleaning and disinfection at Sunrise Senior Living relied on a standard two stage process involving an initial clean with neutral detergent and water, followed by a wash down with bleach at 1000ppm available chlorine. Whilst the two stage process for cleaning and disinfection is a standard approach, multiple different products were used to achieve this and there was no standardisation

As part of this national project Sunrise Senior Living wanted to use a more effective disinfectant order to reduce the frequency, severity and duration of D&V outbreaks by minimising the risk of microbial transmission from the environment by stopping the spread of microbes associated with the outbreak. To achieve this the disinfectant had to be safe, easy to use, non-corrosive / compatible with all surfaces, rapid and effective against a wide range of microbes.

The disinfectant identified and implemented into the care bundle was TECcare CONTROL. The products adopted into the outbreak prevention and management tool kit were the 450ml misting aerosol, the 1 litre ready-for-use trigger spray and the surface wipes (see Figure 1).

The range of TECcare CONTROL cleaning and disinfection products were adopted into practice in association with a new approach to outbreak management. This process required intervention and use of these products at the earliest opportunity in order to contain the outbreak by minimising its spread and thereby reducing the risk of cross infection to residents, visitors and staff. In addition as soon as residents had stopped showing signs of infection the environments (rooms) where they were cared for were deep cleaned. The ‘deepclean’ process implemented during an outbreak used the TECcare CONTROL products to clean and disinfect the affected environment as follows; • 1L ready for use spray – for cleaning all hard surfaces • Medical device wipes – for all medical equipment and high touch surfaces • 450ml single use aerosol – for room fogging/ misting To read the full case study visit our website www.careshop.co.uk

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News

Revealed - the best and worst places to receive care Rutland tops the list of places to offer the best quality care in the UK with Staffordshire offering the worst, according to data from the Care Quality Commission analysed by TrustedCare.co.uk.

In the third year of its CQC summary, TrustedCare.co.uk says in December 2015, the average amount of care services that were deemed ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’ by the CQC was 88.9%. By December 2016, there had been a significant 9.1% drop in the average quality of care with only 79.8% of care services holding a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating.

Jumping forwards to December 2017, it appears the overall quality of care is back on the rise but there is still a long way to go to be on par with the average quality of care in 2015, with 81.96% services currently having a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ CQC rating.

It is good news for people living in Worcestershire and Herefordshire.

Over the past three years, they have retained their top five spot for care quality. Rutland currently holds the top spot with 94.4% of services receiving a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating. It

could be argued that Rutland is a slight anomaly as it is such a small county, with only 22 care services.

To put this into context the average amount of care services per county is 520. Sadly for people living in the Isle of Wight and West Yorkshire, over the past three years they have remained in the bottom five of the league table. In the past two years, with the exception of the Isle of Wight, all the counties in the bottom of the league table lie in

£3m annual growth for Countrywide

After recently acquiring Allanda Ltd, an online retailer of incontinence products, the key focus for the business is the ever-growing elderly sector.

Alastair Kitching, managing director, said: “The business underwent a management buyout (MBO) in April 2014, after which we

Specialist care home consumables and equipment supplier Countrywide Healthcare have reported a strong performance, expanding their profits and workforce, as well as growth in turnover from £14.4 million to £17.4 million in the last financial year.

The Barnsley based distributor has secured numerous care home supply contracts in the last year, as well as developing an extensive online presence to meet the increasing demand of healthcare products to the private sector.

the North of England, with Merseyside, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire all neighbouring one another.

Care services in Oxfordshire have reason to celebrate as the county has jumped 38 places since 2015 and now lies in a very respectable seventh place.

The county has shown a consistent upward trend. From 2015-16 the county went from 45th to 34th place, then jumped a further 27 places over the last 12 months.

Five Best Counties - Care Quality Dec-15

Dec-16

Dec-17

Herefordshire Warwickshire Rutland Worcestershire Cornwall

Herefordshire Worcestershire Northamptonshire Shropshire Warwickshire

Rutland Herefordshire Worcestershire Cambridgeshire Berkshire

Five Worst Counties - Care Quality Dec-15 Isle of Wight West Yorkshire Oxfordshire Leicestershire East Sussex

14 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Dec-16 West Yorkshire Greater Manchester Staffordshire Northumberland Isle of Wight

Dec-17

West Yorkshire Merseyside Isle of Wight Greater Manchester Staffordshire

placed a greater emphasis on sales and marketing with a determination to increase our profile and shape the business for future growth. Since the MBO, sales will have jumped from £9.3 million to projected sales in excess of £20 million for the coming year.”

News

Shaw healthcare gets £10m Bridges Evergreen investment

Jeremy Nixey Shaw healthcare has sold a minority stake to Bridges Evergreen Holdings for £10 million to accelerate its growth and development.

Shaw, which provides residential and domiciliary care, is one of the employee-owned companies in the UK, with over 3,500 employees and revenues of more than £90 million last year. Shaw operates 51 homes in England, Wales and Scotland.

As part of the deal, Bridges’ Scott Greenhalgh will join the Shaw board as a non-executive director.

Jeremy Nixey, founder/CEO of Shaw healthcare, commented: “As we continue to expand the business and enhance our impact in the coming years we sought an investment partner that shares our values and has a strong record in the care sector.

Bridges are the perfect fit and align with our ethos.”

Scott Greenhalgh, executive chairman, Bridges Evergreen Holdings, said: “Shaw is a great example of the kind of organisation we created Evergreen to support: a high-quality business addressing a clear societal challenge at scale and over the long term, managed by an outstanding team. We believe that as an employee-owned business, its focus on staff engagement serves as an important source of competitive advantage as it looks to deliver the highest quality of care and win new contracts.”

Sanctuary Care supports paramedics of the future

Student paramedics are benefiting from work experience placements in Sanctuary Care’s homes across Worcestershire and the West Midlands.

A cohort of up to 50 BSc (Hons) first year students from the University of Worcester are getting ‘real life’ work experience, with a five-week

placement in Sanctuary Care’s homes. The first half of the group have been based at nine homes in Worcestershire.

The placements help them to develop their communication skills, giving them an insight into life in a care home, as well as Sanctuary Care’s ethos of keeping kindness at the heart of its care, promoting dignity and respect.

They take part in every aspect of daily life in the home, from helping with mealtimes, taking part in activities and shadowing the senior care assistants to learn about any medical needs the residents may have.

In January, the second half of the cohort will carry out a five-week placement in Sanctuary Care’s homes in the West Midlands.

Neil Quinn, Sanctuary Care’s director – human resources, said: “We are really proud to be supporting the University of Worcester by welcoming these aspiring paramedics into our homes.

“The feedback from our teams has been very positive and our residents

have really enjoyed spending time with them. Intergenerational projects are so important to give people a mutual respect for different generations and this partnership is also proving to be a beneficial experience for our staff and residents.”

The university’s practice lead/senior lecturer paramedic science, Sharon Hardwick, commented: “The university’s new BSc programme provides the students with all the skills and attributes they need to become a paramedic of the future, this placement will focus not only on skills but the more social aspects of the role.

We are really excited to be working with Sanctuary Care to achieve this.

“Communicating with people during what could be a stressful time can be challenging, the placement opportunities with Sanctuary Care enable the students to develop their communication skills alongside their professionalism in a safe, supportive environment. With the help of Sanctuary Care they will develop into competent students and paramedics of the future.”

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 15

News

Prime Minister helps resident celebrate 109th birthday

Twenty four hours after agreeing a Brexit deal with the European Union in Brussels, the prime Minister took time out to help one of her constituents celebrate a very special birthday.

Irene Thompson, a resident at Care UK’s Clara Court care home celebrated her 109th birthday. As well as spending time with her family and friends, she was joined by special guests, Theresa May and her husband Philip.

The Prime Minister and her husband visited the home, where they spent time chatting with Irene and her family, before joining the rest of the residents and the Care UK team in celebrating Irene’s landmark birthday. To mark the occasion, the home team held a

special party, where Irene and the Prime Minister were the guests of honour, and there were plenty of treats and musical entertainment for everyone to enjoy.

Born in 1908, Irene lived in Richmond, South London, and has lived through two world wars. She remembers the death of the Queen’s father, and the Queen’s coronation, where she took part in the many street parties of the time.

Irene remained living in her own home until she was 108, with occasional carers coming to support her, until she

moved to Clara Court in January 2017.

Irene said the secret to a long life is always being happy and content with life.

Debbie Winwood, home manager at Clara Court, said: “It was an honour to welcome Theresa May to Clara Court for what was an enjoyable afternoon celebrating Irene’s birthday. Irene was looking forward to celebrating with her family and friends, and there was a real buzz of excitement when the Prime Minister’s visit was announced.”

Free factsheet on MRSA for care homes

Infection control specialist, Cairn Care, has launched a fact sheet on MRSA for care homes.

Whilst MRSA bacteria can live harmlessly on the skin or in the nose, it can lead to infections when it gets through the skin via a wound or a device such as a catheter. These infections

can range from mild skin infections such as boils and skin abscesses, through to very serious illnesses like pneumonia and septicaemia.

As Meticillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus has become resistant to Meticillin and other antibiotics, it can prove very difficult to treat. As a result, it is important to take basic precautions with any care home residents that have MRSA. To help care homes do this, Cairn Care’s free factsheet includes 12 tips for effective infection control of MRSA, a visual handwashing guide and other useful advice.

Dr Peter Binns, managing director of Cairn Care says: “The launch of our

16 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

free guide on MRSA is particularly timely given the findings of a recent study which showed that MRSA is widespread in our community. This is contrary to the common belief that most outbreaks and transmissions occur in hospital.

“In fact, researchers at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine identified 173 separate infection clusters in a 12-month period in the East of England alone. This shows that care homes should not be complacent when it comes to managing the spread of this particular bacteria.”

To request your free MRSA fact sheet ‘Caring for residents with MRSA in your care home’ email info@cairncare.co.uk.

News

New date – new venue for the 2018 Care Home Awards

There are new developments for the second year of the growing Care Home Awards.

A new and evolving relationship with CloserStill - the company that now owns and runs the Health + Care Show in June and the Care Show in October - means that for sponsors and marketing partners, the two trade shows will provide invaluable extended reach for communication about the Awards.

And to cope with both future growth and to make attending of even greater value to finalists and sponsors, the Care Home Awards lunch and ceremony will now take place on Wednesday June 27, 2018 in the Platinum Suite, at Excel London, during the Health + Care Show.

The Health + Care Show and Care Show join the growing list of sponsors of the Care Home Awards, which include NHG as headline sponsor,

Avery Healthcare and Helme Hall.

Discussions with other sponsors are also continuing as the interest rises in these UK awards for excellence and innovation.

The Call for Entries to the Care Home Awards 2018 continues.

Bringing joy to some hard pressed executives in January is the good news from the organisers that, because the Awards lunch is now one month later, the deadline date for the Awards will be extended until February 16.

For information about the Awards you can contact Helen Burgin direct at helen.burgin@carehomeawards.com or by phone at 01789 777612.

Care Home Management again partners with Naidex stories and CPD accredited training, to masterclasses for traders looking to thrive within the disability sector.

World class exhibitors will also fill the hall with live demonstrations and the very latest products, services and technology that is shaping the future of assisted technology and independent living. International organisations will share the floor with start-ups, providing a varied and diverse outlook into one of the most progressive sectors in the world.

Naidex, Europe’s leading event dedicated to the disability, independent living and healthcare professional sectors will return for its 44th year to the Birmingham NEC on the 25 and 26 April.

Care Home Management Magazine are partnering with Naidex, where there will be a host of comprehensive seminars with the most influential and thought provoking speakers. These range from inspirational real life January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 17

Enhanced health in care homes King’s Fund studies what is possible The King’s Fund has issued a report outlining how care home residents in England can benefit from enhanced health care – and what care home operators can do to achieve this.

Among its recommendations, the King’s Fund says enhanced health in care homes requires skilled leadership and more clarity is needed on expectations for access to health care for care home residents; resourcing enhanced health in care homes and understanding return on investment; and appropriate use of public funds to support training and information systems in independent care homes.

The independent charity that works to improve health and care in England says enhanced health in care homes can be achieved by close co-ordination between care homes and the range of health services required to meet the needs of older people living in the care homes. When these services work closely together – for example, through regular GP visits to care homes and regular comprehensive assessments – they can actively promote good health rather than just reacting to ill health.

No simple solution But the Fund says there is no single set of actions that will achieve enhanced health in care homes.

They interviewed people in areas that were all making progress but said processes developed in one area and simply imported into another, are unlikely to be effective. Tailoring arrangements to each area’s context and developing relationships that lead to the services working together on the basis of trust and partnership are essential.

They say it is hard to pin down the specific actions involved. They set out to collect information from different areas of the country about their experiences of developing approaches for enhanced health in care homes, which would enable them to describe what is happening in practice.

The Fund says: “The people we spoke to described significant benefits from closer working between care homes and health services. In general, these areas we studied did not have special advantages (such as

18 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

exceptional resourcing) to support this work and this suggests that it could be feasible for any area to develop enhanced health in care homes.

No monitoring of impact “However, we noted that there was most focus on measurement of benefits through the avoidance of NHS activity and costs (e.g., reductions in preventable hospital admissions), with less detailed focus on the impact on quality of care. Most areas were not monitoring impact on overall quality of life.

“In contrast to the strong emphasis that all areas placed on involving people in decisions about their own care, care home residents and their families usually did not have prominent roles in defining ‘what good looks like’ when joining up care homes and health services.”

Areas adopted different approaches to implementation. In about half the areas, approaches were targeted either at care homes with high rates of hospital admissions or at a small number of care homes that acted as a pilot.

Other areas took an ‘organic’ approach, open to all care homes and health services and enabling them to propose priorities and work on them, or to make referrals so that they could get support with specific issues.

Importance of engagement Both research studies and interviewees emphasised the need to start engaging services before finalising plans and to work with care homes in an open, developmental way as partners. Interviewees described journeys from doing things ‘to’ care homes, to doing things ‘with’ them. Sustained effort and leadership was required to get care homes, GPs and NHS trusts on board.

And the Fund had words of praise for local authorities and clinical commissioning groups.

“Local authorities and clinical commissioning groups could provide essential leadership by ensuring priority, unblocking obstacles and modelling ways of working across organisational boundaries. In practice, usually either the local authority or the CCG led the approaches, with consequential stronger involvement of either social care or the NHS.” There was consensus that some additional resource was needed to develop enhanced health in care homes approaches, at least initially, but there was a large variation in the actual levels of resourcing, including one area with no specific resources.

Each area needed to develop its own information to monitor costs and returns on investment as there was no clarity on what the level should be.

together. Interviewees confirmed this, but they also said that results started to become visible as relationships began to develop, rather than only after they were embedded. This could mean that significant results were seen within just a few months, even in areas without a history of joint working.

Removing inequalities The Fund concludes that that developing enhanced health in care homes is often about removing inequalities that care home residents experience in accessing the range of NHS services to meet their needs. Others have reached similar conclusions in the past, but the problem of lower expectations for care home residents remains.

“Developing enhanced health in care homes is not just about quality improvement within care homes, but is part of the wider direction of travel towards integrated and co-ordinated local systems of care,” the report says.

“As such, these approaches should be reflected in local strategic plans for integration, with providers as well as commissioners involved.

“Enhanced health in care homes approaches can achieve significant results, but these were often hard to pin down, especially when they were the combined effect of many small changes rather than a simple, visible ‘cause and effect’.

Practical guidance on impact needed “Several research studies have measured impacts on people’s quality of life and their experience of quality of care, rather than only reduced hospital activity and incidents (such as safeguarding alerts), but this has not followed through into routine practice – even though staff consistently said that improving quality of life was their main objective and motivator.

More practical guidance is needed on measuring impact, and care home residents themselves should be involved in defining what good coordination looks like.

“We highlight the important but challenging roles for leaders at every level – from the front line in care homes and health services to local system level. Networks and communities of practice can help to support these roles and share learning.

NHS England’s leadership at national level has been appreciated, and care is needed to avoid a vacuum when the support programme for vanguards ends in 2018.

“We have made recommendations for extending enhanced health in care homes to all areas, supporting and developing leaders, and ensuring that people living in care homes can access high-quality health care.” https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/ publications/enhanced-health-carehomes-experiences

Research and evaluations emphasised the need to allow time for partnership working to develop, and the benefit of a history of working January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 19

Cover story

CMA uncovers £1bn care funding shortfall – but what follows next?

Alan Rustad looks at the Competition and Markets Authority report on care homes – and what we can expect to happen as we go through 2018.

The long-awaited Competition and Markets Authority report into the state of the care home industry arrived with pretty much all the results the industry was expecting.

What it did – perhaps most importantly of all - was to spell out to the world at large what had been common knowledge within the industry over the past few years that things simply cannot continue like this.

The report told us that local authorities are underfunding care

homes for the elderly to the tune of £1 billion a year. That is an enormous sum and as things stand that sum is only likely to grow.

Self-payers – 40% more The authority identified that selfpayers in care homes are being charged 40% more for their care than local authority funded residents.

Everyone in the industry has known this for some time – self payers have been subsidising local authorities – an abuse that is simply unfair.

The CMA agrees. But less joyful news to care home operators was the announcement that the CMA is planning enforcement action against some providers that have been unfairly charging upfront fees and for periods after the death of a resident. It has warned operators to take note as the practices could be in breach of consumer protection law and it is prepared to take legal action if care homes fail to respond.

At best homes have been bad at explaining why these charges have been levied. At worst they have simply been trying to recoup as much as they can to balance the books.

20 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Key problem areas The authority identified two broad areas where they found problems in the market: 1. Those requiring care need greater support in choosing a care home and greater protections when they are residents.

2. The current model of service provision cannot be sustained without additional public funding; the parts of the industry that supply primarily local authority-funded residents are unlikely to be sustainable at the current rates that councils pay. Significant reforms are needed to enable the sector to grow to meet the expected substantial increase in care needs.

The CMA wants governments in the UK to work with the NHS, councils, care home providers and the third sector to deliver a sustained and coordinated programme to help people make good decisions about their care needs. It should focus on: 1. Providing people with good quality, relevant and timely

Cover Story support when they are making life-changing decisions about care.

2. Helping people quickly and easily identify the relevant, local care options that are available to them.

3. Encouraging and helping people to prepare and plan for future care needs.

Funding model not sustainable The CMA says the funding model for care homes is not sustainable especially as the need for care homes will grow in line with the increase in an elderly population.

Looking ahead, the CMA will be consulting on new guidance on fees charged after death, along with separate, wider guidance for care homes on the standards of behaviour that they should be meeting to comply with consumer law. It will expect all care homes to start reviewing their practices now in the light of the findings, and where necessary make changes.

Better long-term planning For sufficient new care homes to be built, planning and commissioning by councils must improve, says the CMA, to give investors greater confidence in the funding environment. Without this, the sector will not be able to provide the extra capacity needed to meet the predicted increase in demand.

The CMA wants to see the creation of an independent body to oversee and support planning at a council level in England and Northern Ireland.

In Scotland and Wales, the steps that have already been taken should be kept under close review.

Better support The CMA wants more support to help people make informed choices.

Care homes must systematically provide better information on key factors such as the costs of their services and clearly set out for people their entitlements and the choices involved.

Andrea Coscelli More effective consumer protection The vulnerability of residents means they are less able to challenge unfair contracts and practices. Regulators should therefore take a greater role in protecting them, helping to ensure care homes meet their consumer law obligations, and ensure they are held to account where necessary. It is essential that there are effective systems in place for people to complain and, where necessary, have concerns about charges and services acted upon.

The CMA chief executive, Andrea Coscelli, said: “Care homes provide a vital service to some of the most vulnerable people in our society.

However, the simple truth is that the system cannot continue to provide the essential care people need with the current levels of funding.

“Without substantial reform to the way that councils plan and commission care, and greater confidence that the costs of providing care will be covered, the UK also won’t be able to meet the growing needs of its ageing population.

“It is essential that residents and their families can make informed choices, understand how these services will be paid for, and be confident they will be fairly treated and able to complain effectively if they have concerns. We are now calling on care homes, councils and government

bodies to help people navigate what can be a confusing system.”

And on action against care homes, he added: “Of all people, it is especially important that care homes residents are treated fairly and have the full protections of consumer law. We will be taking steps to assist care homes in understanding their obligations, but we are also taking enforcement action now on some issues where we believe the law is being broken.”

Next – the Green Paper So the industry is now digesting this report and the next step will be the long awaited – many say overly long awaited – Green Paper on the future of social care promised for this summer.

But will it take the long view or simply be yet another short term fix?

Politicians don’t often think in terms of 40 or 50 year spans and maybe beyond. Just getting through to the next General Election seems to be the aim for most.

But it is the long view – preferably with cross-party support – that is needed. Will the warmth of summer finally shine upon the UK’s care home industry?

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 21

Never too old to play – where the intergenerational initiative began Geraldine Bedell, editor of the London Essays, is a writer, broadcaster and editor. She has worked as a writer and columnist on the Observer and Independent for many years, has made a number of documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and is the editorial director of Parent Zone. She is the founding editor of both Parent Info, helping parents make sense of their children’s digital lives, and of Gransnet, the social networking site for grandparents.

She is the author of a number of books and reports, both fiction and non-fiction, including the Make Poverty History Handbook and, most recently, The Digital Family.

A nursery in a care home suggests that life for the old could be a lot more fun.

The first person to pull a toy animal out of the bag is 15-monthsold. The second is aged 91. We are in a bright room in Wandsworth, singing Old Macdonald Had a Farm – changing the verses according to which animal comes out – and we are all ages - toddlers, their parents and grandparents, and the residents of Nightingale Hammerson, a care home whose residents have an average age of 90.

Play is not particularly something associated with the very old. Here, though, it is woven into the fabric of every day. Nightingale Hammerson is the first care home in Britain to have a nursery on site. The children come in for songs, games, and activities, and the residents can visit the nursery, which is located at the bottom of the gardens.

It is too early yet to make any serious assessment of the impact of this intergenerational to-and-fro. The Apples and Honey Nightingale nursery (a second branch of an established

nursery in Wimbledon) only opened in the grounds of Nightingale House in September; a baby and toddler group has been coming in a little longer, since last January.

Far exceeding expectations But an interim evaluation report notes that ‘the breadth of relationships formed has far exceeded what was hoped for at the outset’ and offers

22 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

plentiful evidence to back this up. The care home’s residents have asked for more intergenerational activities.

One man who never speaks, except to his carers, communicates freely and is said to ‘light up’ when he is with the children.

Another resident, a 92-year-old woman, said: “I was very depressed before and I just wanted to die.

Now that I see the children here, it encourages me to keep going, to keep trying.” The intergenerational relationships are also valued by the children and their parents - one family sent postcards when they went away on holiday because they missed seeing their friends.

After we have sung Old Macdonald, Miss Polly Had a Dolly, and Incey Wincey Spider at the baby and toddler session, I go upstairs with the nursery children for a Havdallah ceremony signalling the end of Shabbat, and more singing. (Nightingale Hammerson is a Jewish care home.

The nursery is open to all faiths and none - currently around 10 per cent of the children are Jewish, but everyone celebrates Jewish culture).

Importance of music in dementia Of all the arts, music is perhaps the one with the greatest longevity. It is one of the last things that people with dementia tend to lose. And, as Steven Johnson points out in Wonderland, How Play Made the Modern World, it was also one of the first to arise in human history: “Aeons before early humans started to imagine writing or agriculture, they were crafting tools for making music.”

There is something profoundly human about taking part in music making. And to watch the elderly residents of Nightingale House singing with two-year-olds is to see human beings at the opposite ends of the life course communicating easily, sharing the same experience, and finding something intrinsic in each other that cuts through differences in age and circumstance, allowing them to form a bond.

Intergenerational activities at the nursery and the care home are organised to allow for both structured and unstructured play, and to be both resident- and child-led. I watched as a small child offered Margie Bloom, 91, some crayons so she could decorate a paper plate. “She’s decided to keep me supplied,” Margie noted approvingly. Upstairs, one of the residents exclaimed to a child, “Martha, you’ve got new shoes! Could I get some? Can you get my size?”

There is a sense of lightness about these encounters, a feeling that they are an end in themselves, reflecting that sense we have of inhabiting a different world when we surrender to play, of the kind that Steven Johnson describes as a ‘space of wonder and delight where the normal rules have been suspended, where people are free to explore the spontaneous, unpredictable, and immensely creative work of play’.

Why don’t the elderly play more?

Given how much free time old people have it is perhaps surprising

that they don’t play more. That may be a consequence of our prevailing narrative of ageing, which sees the elderly as left-behind, in decline, and possessed of diminishing selfhood.

We dread ageing not simply because it is a physical and metaphorical pain, but because of a cultural sense that getting old progressively robs us of value.

The work at Nightingale Hammerson with Apples and Honey Nursery offers small children a way of seeing beyond this blotting out. The people with whom the infants play, daily or weekly, aren’t primarily defined by dependency, aren’t marginalised, don’t seem alien. They are individuals, friends – teasing, incorrigible, benign, quiet, whatever.

For the old people, the children

offer a way into a world of playfulness and experimentation. It would, I suspect, be hard to get the residents to play if not for the presence of the toddlers and nursery children. It is quite hard to overcome cultural barriers to losing yourself in play, even for adults in midlife, still more if you are constantly being drip-fed the idea that you are ‘old and past it’. But if you are presented with a small child wanting you to help them stick glitter on a paper plate, or pass you a red brick, it’s easy.

It is generally accepted that play makes human beings more flexible, open to new experiences, and defter in dealing with them. Play is profoundly humanising – which matters to the old, who can easily find themselves dehumanised.

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 23

Steven Johnson notes that recent scientific research has advanced the theory that dopamine, released when we play, creates a ‘novelty bonus’, heightening mental faculties and making us more alert and engaged.

Play encourages us to pay attention because of the sense it induces that something interesting is going on here.

The benefits of socialising Research by the US National Institute on Aging, among others, has linked social interaction to delayed mental decline, lower blood pressure, and a reduced risk of disease and death. One Japanese study found that socialising across generations led to an increased amount of smiling and conversation among older adults.

And a Channel 4 documentary, Old People’s Home for Four Year Olds, which took a nursery class into a care home for six weeks, reached similar conclusions, with researchers noticing an almost immediate improvement in the mood and emotional states of the elderly residents, and a completely unexpected improvement in mobility.

There would be some practical obstacles to rolling out the Nightingale Hammerson/Apples and Honey Nursery model, especially in London.

Nightingale House is fortunate in benefiting from economies of scale (it is unusually large for a care home, with 200 residents and extensive buildings) and in being able to draw on the engagement of the Jewish community. It has large grounds, especially for a site in such an expensive part of London (it was founded 170 years ago) and a bungalow at the bottom of the garden, which was previously used for storage, that could be transformed into a bright, two-classroom nursery.

But the principles of intergenerational care may nevertheless offer useful ways forward.

The Mayor’s Vision for a Diverse and Inclusive City, published in 2017, makes clear that inclusivity must apply across generations as well as (for example) ethnic groups. London will have to think hard about not merely caring for its growing population of old people, but also enabling them to thrive.

Significant benefits The Nightingale/Apples and Honey experiment will need proper evaluation but the benefits look, to the casual observer, significant. They go in both directions - the children enjoy the

24 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

adults’ attention, and the residents revel in the children’s company and irrepressible playfulness. The benefits go wider, too, because anything that helps to break down intergenerational suspicion and reserve is to the good.

Isolating the generations doesn’t make for a healthy city.

The children throw themselves into play with the residents without hesitation or fear, feeling at home, neither embarrassed nor awkward at having to spend time with old people.

And the playfulness that the children permit in the old people engenders an atmosphere of possibility, in which anything could be about to happen, a promise of growth and opportunity.

Perhaps Margie, picking up her crayon, should have the last word: “It is wonderful to be able to play again.

I don’t really like to admit it, but this is just so enjoyable. When I’m here I forget everything else.”

This essay is from London Essays, a journal published by Centre for London and supported by Capital and Counties Properties PLC. The full collection of essays is available at: http://essays.centreforlondon. org/issues/play/.

Searching for help in reaching ‘Outstanding’?

There’s a podcast for that A podcast aimed at people working within the care industry in the UK is providing valuable insight into how care can improve in quality.

Called ‘The Road to Outstanding’, it features interviews with managers of outstanding rated care companies and asks them how they achieved the accolade and what lessons they have learned along the way.

The podcast is the brainchild of Sophie Coulthard, principal consultant at Judgement Index, a values based assessment tool that identifies and develops people in the workplace. But the podcast is Sophie’s own brainchild, separate from her day job and she decided to start it as a project after finding there wasn’t much information about what outstanding managers do that is different.

Listen while commuting “I’m a big fan of podcasts as I like to listen on my commute, and I thought the same for people working in care. Each episode is quite relaxed and chatty, so it makes an easy listen, and I’ve had tweets from people saying they’ve chuckled at some of the stories they’ve heard, but that it’s also given them ideas to use in their own company,” said Sophie “The idea originally came from an outstanding rated manager I know who said she’d never been asked to share her experiences before. Hearing someone who is doing the job tell their story and also talk about the human aspect of trying to switch off after work or how they celebrate success has really resonated with the listeners.”

The series began in September last year and in its ten episodes has featured advice and suggestions from managers who have reached that ‘outstanding’ level from the Care Quality Commission.

The podcasts feature leaders such as Julia Clinton from Sonnet Care Homes, who talked about the challenge she faced when she took the post and found the home the subject of some very negative media attention. She discussed with Sophie how she changed the culture and went on to enter and win numerous care awards after turning things around.

Variety of topics There are also interviews with industry experts covering subjects such as Facebook marketing, public relations and selection and development, with the aim of sharing key strategies people can listen to and then implement in their own company.

The podcast is not just aimed at leaders, but anyone wanting to listen to people sharing experiences within care.

There’s a big emphasis on the good that is being done, and a second series of podcasts for 2018 is already in the planning stages.

Sophie added: “I’d really like to interview more domiciliary care providers for the next series as it’s

something I keep getting asked about.

I would also love to hear from people who are on the journey to outstanding – and what steps they’re doing to get there - anyone with a great story to tell who’s doing something innovative, it’s so valuable and so important to share.

I’d love them to get in touch” Anyone wanting to build an even better service, who wants to learn how to create a culture with outstanding values and improve care quality can easily access the podcast in a number of ways.

You can listen via iTunes and Podbean or just search for The Road to Outstanding. See the website https:// theroadtooutstanding.podbean.com/ You can also follow Sophie on Twitter - @Carepodcast for news, episode information and to enquire about being a guest.

Sophie Coulthard January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 25

Inquests, investigations and how to navigate them

by Daniel Machover, head of the civil department at solicitors Hickman and Rose. only have a reason to suspect that the death was unnatural in order to initiate further investigation.

A care home resident’s death can cause untold distress. Coronial and subsequent investigations prolong the unease, draining staff morale.

Difficulties become acute where managers and employees are underprepared, lacking knowledge of their role and rights in the inquest process.

An understanding of how inquests work is key to enabling providers to participate in a way that protects their reputation and the welfare of their staff and residents.

Section 1(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 2009 imposes a duty on the Coroner to investigate deaths that were violent or unnatural, or where the cause of death is unknown.

The preliminary investigation will involve the Coroner ordering a postmortem and looking at evidence.

Where the post-mortem or preliminary investigations establish the cause of death and there is no reason to suspect that the deceased died a violent or unnatural death, the investigation will end there. Otherwise, the coronial investigation will proceed to an inquest.

Unnatural deaths include cases where the deceased ostensibly died from a natural cause but there is reason to suspect the condition may have been triggered or accelerated by inappropriate treatment, including neglect or accident. A coroner need

Inquests Where the investigation proceeds, the Coroner will call an inquest. If, however, anyone is under investigation for an offence connected with the death, an inquest may be adjourned until later. Inquests take place as public court proceedings, overseen by the Coroner, who will set the bounds of the inquiry. There will be not normally be a jury unless the death resulted from an accident at work or occurred in state custody.

26 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

The purpose of an inquest is to establish: • who the deceased was • how, when and where the deceased came by his death • the particulars to be registered concerning the death Broadly speaking, there are two kinds of inquests. Enhanced inquests are held where a state agency is implicated in the death by arguably failing to meet its obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights to put in place general systems to protect life or to take steps to protect the life of vulnerable individuals who are at real and immediate risk of death.

Enhanced inquests will investigate the question of ‘how’ the deceased died more broadly, seeking to find out in what circumstances the deceased

came by his death. The day to day running of a care home, covering everything from standards of cleanliness to staff behaviour, can be scrutinised.

Private healthcare providers fulfilling certain roles can also trigger Article 2 inquests, for example, where they are being paid by the NHS to carry out an NHS function.

Where there is no enhanced obligation to investigate ‘how’ a person came by their death, ‘how’ is defined as ‘by what means’. Given that in every case the Coroner’s duty is to ensure the relevant facts are exposed to public scrutiny, particularly if there is evidence of foul play, abuse or inhumanity, the difference between the two kinds of inquest is not very significant.

Inquests can be emotionally charged. ‘Interested persons’, such as the deceased’s family members or their lawyers, are allowed to request most documents and to question any witness during the hearing. Evidence given on oath by witnesses under cross-examination can later be used in

regulatory or criminal investigations.

Where witnesses make admissions to criminal offences, the inquest can be stopped while prosecutions are undertaken. It is a criminal offence to give false evidence or to fail to comply with a coroner’s notice to give evidence.

Subsequent investigations While an inquest does not directly establish criminal or civil liability for a death, it can investigate what would be capable of forming the basis of criminal charges or civil actions.

Inquests can run parallel to the care provider’s internal investigations and may be followed by regulatory or criminal probes. When generating paperwork during internal investigations, it is vital to maintain an awareness of the duty to disclose documents that may later be requested by the Coroner or investigators. Poorly drafted interview notes, for example, can lead to misunderstandings or even contain unintended admissions.

There is a delicate balance to be

drawn between cooperation and ensuring that requests for information are lawful and proportionate. Criminal investigators have wide powers to gather evidence. They can seize documents following an arrest, giving the provider little control over what is taken. They can also make voluntary requests or production orders. Legally privileged material is not required to be disclosed under a production order.

Determinations and Findings Other than determining who the deceased was; how, when and where the deceased came by their death; and the details needed to register the death, where ‘anything’ revealed by the investigation gives rise to concern that ‘circumstances creating a risk of other deaths will occur’, a Coroner can make a report preventing future deaths. It is possible to oppose the making of these reports. Challenges to the Coroner’s conclusions should be made as soon as possible and most challenges must be made within a three month limit.

Care Management Home Free Legal Advice Line 01423 724056 Care Home Management and specialist health and social care law firm, Hempsons, offer a free advice line for Care Home Management readers. Simply call 01423 724056 quoting ‘Care Home Management Advice Line’ or email socialcare@hempsons.co.uk The Legal Advice Line is open between 9.00am and 5.00pm, Monday to Friday and offers up to 20 minutes of valuable preliminary advice on a range of issues faced by social care providers.

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January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 27

Carpets – therapeutic, easy to clean and warming

The overarching ethos in care homes is that they are places where elderly people, some with complex health needs, live. It is their home, and quality of life matters.

There are approximately 416,000 people living in care homes and with some fees being in excess of £1,000 a week, residential homes or care facilities now have to provide quality care in surroundings which are more accustomed to hotels than a “traditional” care home.

Carpet may not be suitable for all locations in a care facility, but when it comes to areas such as bedrooms, corridors and communal lounges, carpet can have a key role in creating a therapeutic environment for residents, staff and visitors.

Danfloor’s recommendations for the use of carpet within non-clinical healthcare environments have been published in the 2017 edition of the Department of Health building design notes, Dementia Friendly Health and Social Care Environments. The recommendations refer to the use of carpet within care environments and address some of the misconceptions

associated with its use, especially when it comes to cleaning and infection control.

Special designs for the care sector A carpet that has been designed for use in the care sector can offer many functional benefits. Traditionally, carpet may be considered more difficult to clean and maintain. However, although carpets are sometimes thought of as a hotspot for the spread of infection, research has shown that the most common MRSA sites in hospitals are in fact bed linen, gowns and tables rather than floors.

Furthermore, carpet is often thought to be susceptible to contamination by fungi and bacteria. Again, studies suggest otherwise. One study showed that pathogens such as vancomycinresistant enterococci (VRE) survive less well or for shorter periods on carpet than on other floor coverings including rubber tile, linoleum, vinyl sheet and vinyl composition tile.

The research also found that less VRE was transferred to hands via contact with carpet than via rubber

28 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

or vinyl flooring. The Care Quality Commission states: “There is no legislation that forces you to replace your carpets in favour of hard flooring or lino. You can have carpets as long as you keep them clean and infection free.”

A life cycle cost analysis for floor coverings in school facilities showed that it takes two and a half times longer to clean hard floors than carpet annually and the cleaning chemicals needed for hard floors are seven times more expensive.

Consider cleaning and maintenance Although consideration of how to properly clean and maintain flooring is a necessity for care homes, creating that home from home feeling should also be a key consideration and carpets can provide many aesthetic and functional benefits for those living within such environments.

Unwanted noise can have an adverse effect on people living in care facilities, leading to a reduction in levels of comfort and wellbeing. Staff performance levels and the ability to

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concentrate can also be negatively impacted by noise. UK building regulations stipulate that a suitable floor covering should have a weighted reduction in impact sound pressure level of no less than 17dB when measured in accordance with EN ISO 140-8 and calculated in accordance with EN ISO 717-2.

Much of the sound within a room is absorbed by carpet, which reduces sound reverberation. Carpets also improve acoustics by reducing impact noise, which relates to the control of sound from one space to another, helping to create a calm and peaceful living and working environment. The installation of carpets in corridors and bedrooms can also help to absorb unwanted noise, which aids rest and relaxation and helps to reduce stress levels, especially for those who are living with dementia who may find it difficult to filter out unwanted noise.

Effective thermal insulation Unlike hard flooring, carpet gives a room a warm and welcoming feel

and provides a soft cushioned layer for extra comfort underfoot. Research also suggests that carpet is one of the most effective thermal insulators and that the temperature in carpeted rooms may be up to 2°C higher than it is in rooms with hard flooring. Carpets therefore improve energy consumption and have low heat conduction and it is estimated that they can reduce heating costs by 8-13 per cent.

Studies have shown that carpet, when compared with vinyl, can reduce injuries caused by trips and falls. It has also been proven that gait speed and step length is greater in older people walking on carpeted areas than when walking on vinyl. All of which provides great independence and confidence in those with mobility issues.

Before selecting a flooring solution, there are many factors to consider. You should always choose a product that has been tried and tested within the care home sector.

It is also important to check the carpet specification to ensure you are getting the best possible product and

protecting your investment. A good way of comparing otherwise identical looking carpets is by considering their total pile weight, which includes not only the weight of the yarn but also the backing.

As a general rule and in combination, cut pile carpets with a pile height of no more than 5 mm, a total pile weight exceeding 1000 grams per square metre and a pile density - the number of stitches per square metre – of more than 180,000 tufts, will provide you with a carpet that will perform better and last longer.

Finally, aesthetics, suitability, functionality, cost and the ability to keep your chosen flooring clean and maintain it, are all factors that you should take into account to ensure you make the right choice of flooring for your care home.

To view the danfloor healthcare collection, which is specifically manufactured for the needs of the healthcare market, visit www.danfloor.co.uk

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 29

It’s the season to sneeze – especially in care environments

It is the time of year for coughs and colds as well as the more horrible care home horror of norovirus.

As we go into winter and the weather cools, it is more important than ever to familiarise staff, residents and visitors with the NHS’ simple, hand washing steps to prevent the spread of germs and illnesses.

Noses carry millions of bacteria but up to 50% of all people carry the potentially harmful staphylococcus bacteria, which makes sneezing and the blowing of noses one of the easiest ways for germs to run rife.

Proper handwashing The best preventative measure to combat illnesses, from the common cold to norovirus, is proper hand washing.

Manty Stanley, managing director at TEAL Patents, says: “As it’s the season to sneeze, it is vital that everyone staff, residents and visitors alike - know the dangers of not thoroughly washing

hands after sneezing or blowing their nose.

“Nursing and residential care organisations must take the initiative and give people better access to washing facilities this winter.

“By making TEAL units available, nursing and care home organisations will allow everyone to enjoy the gold standard of hand hygiene – washing hands thoroughly with soap under hot, running water.

“TEAL has worked with nursing and residential care organisations for many years to ensure that everyone in a care environment is germ-free and without the threat of catching a common illness such as a cold or the potentially deadly influenza.”

TEAL Patents is a leading manufacturer of portable, hot water, hand wash units which require no access to mains water or drainage and has developed a range of units to meet care and nursing environments’ specific requirements.

30 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

The best handwashing technique 1. Wet your hands with water (warm or cold).

2. A pply enough soap to cover all over yourhands. You can use alcohol-based hand rub.

3. Rub hands palm to palm.

4. Rub the back of your left hand with your right palm with interlaced fingers.

5. Rub your palms together with fingers interlaced.

6. Rub the backs of your fingers against your palms with fingers interlocked.

7. Clasp your left thumb with your right hand and rub in rotation. Repeat with your left hand and right thumb.

8. Rub the tips of your fingers in the other palm in a circular motion, going backwards and forwards. Repeat with the other hand.

9. Rinse hands with water (warm or cold).

10. Dry thoroughly ideally with a disposable towel.

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Hi. I’m Scott Phillips, Director for Waterman Biocare Technologies.

I have been involved in the control of Legionella bacteria for the several years using “White Microbial Technology” to control the recycled (dirty) water in vehicle wash systems.

The technology we have been using takes a certain strain of bacteria (the friendly type you may find in things like Yakult & Actimel) and outcompetes the bacteria that causes disease. Due to the success of this process we were keen to see if the technology could be transferred into the domestic cleaning market. Using the knowledge of industry experts we now have a brand of products ready to cover all aspects of the professional and industrial cleaning arena. These products have not only been designed to ensure they provide a deep clean to the surface they are used on but also improve the hygienic status as well. All our products go through rigorous testing and accreditation and all conform to Section h of the Official Journal of the European Union L180/58 (12th July 2017) Does your current supplier comply with these regulations?

There are many other benefits to using our products and I’d like to ask you the following questions: ■ Are you using too many cleaning products?

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Collectively, the Waterman BIOcare team can draw on more than 200 years of experience working with some of the major industrial fermentation, OEM’s and facilities management companies. We are backed by staff and associates that include PhD microbiologists, chemists and process engineers each with a long track record in designing and bringing to market innovative microbial, antimicrobial, chemical & bio-based cleaning and remediation products and delivery systems.

■ The latest scientific development bringing “White Biotechnology” to the FM and Healthcare industries.

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The BIOcare range of products bring the next generation of biological and chemical agents that surpass existing technologies in their ability to provide effective cleaning solutions. In many instances one BIOcare product may be able to replace up to 10 conventional products, resulting in lower stock purchases and reductions in the training requirements of operators. We want to be a “onestop shop” for all your cleaning requirements.

Providing enhanced environmental cleaning with the most up to date “White Microbiological Technology” available in the UK.

Waterman BIOcare can further assist you by bringing an entire team of expertise to your disposal via other subsidiary companies within the Waterman Group, including a UKAS accredited microbial laboratory, legionella monitoring, risk management and environmental consultancy.

■ Modern and affordable bio-based chemistry combined with natural soil degrading bacteria.

■ Employing a unique GMP certified fermentation process.

■ Totally biodegradable formulations providing solutions for a cleaner and healthier environment.

■ No harsh chemicals, preservatives nor free enzymes ■ Bacteria have “Qualified Presumption of Safety” (QPS) status as defined by the European Food Safety Authority

For more information or an informal discussion please contact Scott Phillips Tel – 01543 261000 scottphillips@watermanbiocare.co.uk www.watermanbiocare.co.uk

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 31

Care about compliance?

Prepare now for GDPR The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) contains critical obligations and comes into effect next May. Although many months away, most businesses, including care homes, will need months of work to get a plan in place and achieve compliance, according to Paula Tighe, information governance director at leading law firm Wright Hassall.

Paula Tighe

Like many other sectors, data protection within care homes is extremely important, and any major data breach or leak of personal information could result in serious penalties and risks lasting reputational damage.

Therefore, it is vital that key decision makers begin setting out a plan for GDPR compliance sooner rather than later, as meeting the new regulations entails more than a simple boxticking exercise.

The fact that the UK is leaving the EU does not alter the requirement to comply and it doesn’t matter where in the world your data comes from, if it is used, recorded, or processed in the EU, you must comply with GDPR.

Raise awareness and register it First, ensure all decision makers in your organisation understand the changes and that non-compliance is serious. Begin by recording the entire compliance process, making a note of any significant changes to company policy, as this will help protect your organisation during the early stages of GDPR. Also known as the ‘Data Register’, this record will contain information on what data your company currently holds, as well as details on how it was obtained and why it is being processed.

This helps you comply with the

accountability principles of the GDPR, which requires you to have effective policies and procedures in place.

Compliance is more about how and why you do things, rather than stopping you doing them. Make sure you review your processes for searching for, capturing and recording personal data, including how you obtained consent from the individuals concerned.

Review your existing digital and hard copy format privacy notices and policies - are they concise, written in clear language, easy to understand and easily found?

Finally, review how you communicate these notices and policies with data subjects, ensuring you explain your reason for processing the data, how long you will keep it and how individuals can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if they are unhappy.

Rights of the individual Individuals will have more control over their personal data under the GDPR. Check your procedures and amend if necessary, detailing the format in which you will provide data, how you would delete it, and how you will correct mistakes.

32 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Individuals also have the right to have their information erased and to be forgotten. You must be able to prove that you have a process in place to comply with such requests.

Perhaps one of the key drivers for the changes, is the right for an individual to prevent their data being used for direct marketing purposes, as is the right to challenge and prevent automated decision-making and profiling.

Having transparent procedures in place will go a long way towards heading off any future problems with the regulator, regardless of complaints or investigations. Remember, if your organisation handles personal data correctly under the current Data Protection Act, the switch to the GDPR should pose no real problems.

Prepare for personal requests If an individual makes a subject access request, for which you cannot charge, to see what information you hold on them, you must comply within a month. You can refuse to comply if you think the request has no merit – but you must tell them why and that they can complain to the regulator.

For SMEs, such as many care homes, it will be more important to show a willingness to comply by trying to implement all the necessary steps and creating a data register, than to be fully compliant in May.

Keep reviewing and keep recording Under the GDPR and when you are obtaining and processing personal and sensitive categories of data, you need to record how this data will be retained and under what condition; for example, is the retention period required for legal, regulation and/or organisational purposes.

The new regulations bring a requirement for all business effected by the GDPR to not only have a retention (data minimisation) policy and schedule, but to carry out mandatory Privacy Impact Assessments (PIA) if they want to process personal data as part of normal business practices, or if it is to be processed on a new technological or information society system, or if it contains sensitive categories of data.

These assessments will help you decide what the likely effects are on the individual, mitigate any risk and help you build in ‘privacy by design’ in how you obtain and process individuals’ data. Ensure you have a robust process for making the assessments and then record it, along with the outcome – a PIA is a simple step towards compliance, with the emphasis on what you do, rather than what you say you will do.

Make someone responsible and keep it up If your company handles personal data on a large scale, it may be worth appointing a dedicated Data Protection Officer, who can oversee ongoing data handling activities, ensuring your company is GDPR compliant at all times.

It does not have to be someone within your organisation – you might choose to appoint an appropriate individual on a part-time or consultancy basis.

It’s not just electronically-held data that can pose a problem. You also need to consider written records, which are also covered by the regulations ensure all your staff are trained on the correct handling of personal data.

Remember, recording the entire compliance process can help protect your organisation during the initial months of GDPR. It would be optimistic to think all companies will be totally compliant in time for its arrival, so therefore showing that you are making an effort to comply will work in your favour should any claims be brought against you.

Those organisations who make little or no effort to comply and neglect their data register will suffer worse punishment than those who have been proactive in keeping a detailed record.

Never assume you have consent One of the trickier areas of the new regulations is handling consent for personal data to be captured and used for more than just contact.

Individuals must give clear consent for their data to be used, but must be allowed to revoke consent easily, at any time. If you change the way you want to use their data, you must obtain a new consent.

Consent must be implicit and your attempts to obtain or confirm consent, will help mitigate any future problems at the hands of the regulator.

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 33

New training launched to improve end of life care in nursing homes An innovative new training programme tailor made for care and nursing home staff has been launched by a leading Lancashire hospice to improve end of life care for residents.

The 4Elements to End of Life Care course has been developed by experienced palliative care professionals within the Knowledge Exchange team at St Catherine’s Hospice near Preston.

It aims to equip care and nursing home staff with both practical and communication skills to help residents stay within their familiar environments at the end of life, avoiding unnecessary and inappropriate deaths in hospital.

The training comprises four main modules and also covers the principles and practical implementation of personalised care plans for people in the last days or hours of life.

Full package or modules Care and nursing homes can invest in the full training package, or select relevant modules accordingly.

Lynn Kelly, director of knowledge

exchange at St Catherine’s Hospice, said: “We are proud of our new 4Elements programme which we have devised to help care and nursing home staff offer the best possible support for residents and their families at the end of life.

“A key focus of our work at St Catherine’s Hospice is fulfilling people’s wishes about where they want to spend their final days. We know that most would prefer to be at home rather than in hospital – and for the thousands of nursing and care home residents in the UK, this means staff must be confident tackling the sensitive issues as well as the specialist practical skills which come with end of life care.

“Our aim is to create peace of mind for residents, families, employees and managers – equipping staff with the skills to create personalised end of life care plans which are in place early enough for them to be properly acted upon. This ensures people remain in their familiar surroundings, eases pressure on already stretched hospital trusts, and helps care and nursing homes to meet the inspection criteria

of the Care Quality Commission.

“Above all, we hope the training will help more people to enjoy the best possible quality of life, until the end of life – wherever they live, and whatever condition they have.”

Training delivered on site The 4Elements training is delivered on site at the care or nursing home by the hospice’s experienced clinical education team. Homes who sign up for all four modules will also receive additional support via the 4Connect service, offering further education and networking opportunities for nursing home staff.

Deborah Farr, end of life coordinator with Flightcare Ltd – a nursing and residential home provider across the North West – who has undertaken training with St Catherine’s, said: “I believe one of the most vital aspects for delivering excellent end of life care and reducing avoidable hospital admissions is education of the providers of care and I have found the training from St Catherine’s Hospice to be a fabulous resource.”

Jackie Murphy, home manager at Highcliffe residential home in Chorley, said: “All the staff who took part have said how much they enjoyed it, how informative and interesting it was and how they have reflected differently now on talking to residents about their end of life and the choices they can make. The training has been one of the most valuable the home has experienced.” www.stcatherines.co.uk/educationconference/projects

34 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Developing a care home -

how to choose the right agreement when buying land

by Charlotte Harris, senior associate in hlw Keeble Hawson’s commercial property team. of these might entail you obtaining satisfactory planning permission for your proposed development. Once this is secured, the land sale can proceed on the terms set out in the conditional contract. If it is refused, you are not obliged to buy it.

If you are looking to expand your care home business but cannot find a suitable existing building, you may be considering the purchase of a plot of land to construct one from scratch.

The purchase of a development site often justifies a departure from a straightforward sale and purchase contract. There are many types of agreements, which can be entered into with a seller of a development site catering for widely differing circumstances. Before entering into negotiations, it is important to know two of the main types of agreement to consider.

An option to purchase, commonly known as a call option, is an agreement in which a landowner grants you the right to buy land within a specified timeframe. During this period, you can decide whether or not you want to commit to buying the plot.

If you decide to purchase, you can ‘call’ on the landowner to proceed

with the sale. If however, you decide against buying the land, you will not be obliged to do so at any point - and the landowner would then be free to sell it to another party when the agreed timeframe ends.

Sub-divided plots Option agreements are particularly useful where the proposed development site is sub-divided amongst landowners and there is no guarantee that all of them will sell. The development site can be assembled gradually by acquiring options over each parcel of land. Once the entire site is under option, you can apply for planning permission, and then once permission has been obtained, you can exercise each option.

The other route is a conditional contract. This is similar to an option to purchase, in that you are not bound to buy a piece of land until certain conditions are satisfied. Typically, one

Take care over defining conditions Care must be taken when defining the conditions of such an agreement, otherwise you might find yourself stuck with a property and planning permission that would make either the construction or the operation of the new care home economically unviable or impracticable. The terms of the agreement need to be certain to avoid the risk of the entire contract being declared void by a court.

Both types of agreement are advantageous to a developer as they both provide a degree of flexibility when considering the purchase of a piece of land.

The important distinction is that under an option to purchase, you have absolute discretion over whether to go ahead with buying the land, whereas under a conditional contract, you are bound to complete a purchase once the conditions of the contract are met.

It is crucial to secure the arrangement that suits you and your commercial objectives best – because once a contract is signed, you must fulfil all your obligations. When considering developing land, it is a wise precaution to take legal advice. hlw Keeble Hawson - 0114 252 1464. charlotteharris@hlwkeeblehawson.co.uk

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 35

Events and Appointments

Events line-up

Appointments

12-18 March 2018

HC-One welcomes leading dementia expert

Nutrition and Hydration Week

https://nutritionandhydrationweek. co.uk/ 13 March 2018 Future of Care Conference

https://futureofcare.co.uk/ 21 April 2018 Care Home Open Day

www.carehomeopenday.org.uk 25-26 April 2018

Dementia Care and Nursing Expo

NEC Birmingham www.carehomeexpo.co.uk

HC-One has appointed dementia specialist Professor Graham Stokes as director of memory care support services.

Professor Stokes joins HC-One this month from his role as global director of dementia care at Bupa.

Professor Stokes’ new role at HCOne will be key in contributing to the continuity and seamless integration of the 100+ Bupa care homes that will be joining the HC-One family. In addition, the appointment will also enable HCOne to enhance the care it provides to all residents living with dementia, and

Jonathan Freeman

27 June 2018 Care Home Awards ceremony

Platinum Suite, ExCel, London www.carehomeawards.com

Graham Stokes

will further HC-One’s aim of being the first choice care provider within each of the communities it serves.

CareTech Foundation appoints interim CEO for charity partnerships The CareTech Charitable Foundation, the first independent grant-making charitable corporate foundation in the care sector, has appointed a charity sector heavyweight as its first CEO. Jonathan Freeman, former managing director of Mosaic, The Prince of Wales’s mentoring charitable initiative, will be responsible for setting its strategic vision and driving forward the charity’s partnership network.

He is joined by foundation manager Sara Smith who brings with her experience from Business in the Community and The Prince’s Trust International.

27-28 June 2018 Health + Care

ExCel, London www.healthpluscare.co.uk 2-3 July 2018 The Care Forum

Heythrop Park, Oxfordshire https://thecareforum.co.uk/ 17-18 October 2018 Care Show

NEC Birmingham www.careshow.co.uk

Borough Care appoints CEO Borough Care has appointed Mark Ward as its new chief executive officer.

Borough Care is the largest not for profit provider of care for older people in Stockport, providing both residential and day care.

Mark Ward joins Borough Care from youth charity OnSide Youth Zones, where he headed up the delivery of a national network of 21st century youth facilities. He brings with him experience in the voluntary and care sectors, including chief executive roles.

36 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Mark Ward

Events and Appointments

LifeCare Residences appoints general manager LifeCare Residences, the international retirement village operator, has appointed Carolyn Henderson as the new general manager of Battersea Place, in London.

Carolyn joins from The Royal OverSeas League, a private members’ club in Mayfair, London and Edinburgh, where she was director of operations.

Carolyn will be responsible for the day to day operations, ensuring a firstrate level of service for all residents, as well as maintaining and enhancing the company’s person-centred approach to care.

Carolyn commented: “Battersea

strengthened its food and beverage offering at Battersea Place with the appointment of a hospitality and butler manager, Matthew Balman, who previously served the Royal Household at Buckingham Palace.

Carolyn Henderson

Matthew Balman

Place is a best-in-class retirement community and the first of its kind for London. I’m delighted to be joining this thriving company, which has such an exceptional track record for innovation and ambition for the future.”

Meanwhile, LifeCare Residences has

New board appointment at Healthcare Homes

Matt King

New manager at home for farmers Karolina Bialecka-Sokol has been appointed head of home at Beaufort House, one of two residential care homes in the country run primarily for farmers.

Beaufort House, in Burnham-onSea, Somerset, is owned and run by the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution

Springhill make three appointments Accrington based Springhill Care Group has announced three key appointments which will create a new executive team and support the growth of the business.

A trio of staff have been named by the company as associate directors to support managing director Donna

Healthcare Homes Group have appointed Matt King, Group finance director, to the board of Healthcare Homes Holdings Ltd. He joins chairman Philip George, founding directors David Bates and Graham Lomer, and Gordon Cochrane, the group’s CEO as a company director.

(R.A.B.I), the farming sector’s oldest and largest welfare charity. In 2017, it was rated ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission.

Before joining R.A.B.I, Karolina worked as the registered manager of a large care home in Taunton, which supported people with a range of needs including dementia. Prior to that, she was responsible for an 80-bed home in Bristol.

Since moving to the Healthcare Homes Group, Matt has been involved in a number of developments within the finance department including implementation and upgrades of various financial systems, corporate restructures, treasury management, investor relations, numerous acquisitions and was heavily involved in a re-financing programme in 2015.

Karolina Bialecka-Sokol

Briggs and the group’s board of directors.

Christine Stevens has been promoted to assistant director for communications and development; Shirley Waling for finance and development; and Virginia Perkins for people and organisational development.

In their new they will play a key part in implementing the group’s vision to become the provider and employer of choice in the communities it serves.

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 37

Product spotlight

DESIGNER CONTRACTS NAMED AS NUMBER ONE SUPPLIER FOR NATIONAL PROCUREMENT CONSORTIUM Designer Contracts has become number one preferred supplier for Procurement for Housing (PfH) on the flooring category of its EU compliant framework.

Said Designer Contracts md, Peter Kelsey: “Moving in to the prestigious ‘top spot’ comes four years after qualifying as a preferred supplier for the PfH framework.

“As the UK’s largest flooring contractor, we are able to supply an unrivalled range of products with swift delivery, competitive pricing and

advice on the correct products for the environment.”

Procurement for Housing drives efficiency and improves procurement practice for more than 850 social housing providers throughout the UK. This allows them to choose suppliers that have been carefully vetted and appraised on ability to deliver. PfH enables social housing organisations to generate cost savings and business efficiencies which reduce spend for members to the sum of over £55 million per year.*

Its distribution network across 12 regional depots gives the company access to all corners of the country providing all framework members with a truly local service. It has also appointed a client liaison point of contact at its centrally located head office.

* figures based on 2016 Annual Report

IP65 RATED TOILET ALARM KIT ANNOUNCED

Baldwin Boxall has announced the availability of IP65 rated toilet alarm

products. Fully tested and certified, users can connect the units to the manufacturer’s four-way toilet alarm panel or one of their EVC systems.

Products in the range include: ceiling pull cord, reset button, call button and call/reset point and can be combined with the UK manufacturer’s standard toilet alarm products. This makes it possible for installers to fit the IP65 rated items where required, such as the pull cord and reset button in a shower with a

standard overdoor light outside the room.

The new products are the first of their kind to market and provide a long-awaited solution. Users of standard toilet alarm kits have historically faced the problems of failed units in humid areas with frequent replacements or inoperative systems. These new products will be welcomed as they will provide a long term solution – saving valuable time and money.

NOVUS GIVES NEW LEASE OF LIFE TO FARTHING COURT RETIREMENT COMPLEX Novus Property Solutions has completed a major refurbishment project at an assisted living complex in Greater London.

Owned and managed by Kingsdale Group, Farthing Court is an assisted living development comprising 31 two-bedroom apartments and 30 one-bedroom apartments, along with restaurant facilities, a hobbies room, guest suite and lounge area.

Over the course of 18 weeks, nine Novus operatives carried out the interior refurbishment, redecorating all communal corridors

and stairwells as well as the staff studio apartment and guest suite.

With several elements to coordinate the Novus’ team took a collaborative approach, liaising with the carpet fitters and the furniture manufacturers to ensure that the project ran smoothly and to the agreed programme of works.

Novus also stripped out and replaced two bathrooms and two communal toilets as part of the comprehensive refurb. As well as new sanitaryware, Novus built new partition walls, and tiled the floor and walls.

For more information about Novus

38 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

Property Solutions please visit www.novussolutions.co.uk You can also follow Novus Property Solutions on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

January/Febuary 2018 | Care Home Management 39

Good food starts here

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40 Care Home Management | January/February 2018

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