SOCIAL CARE
Home improvements Recovering from a disappointing CQC rating can be tough, but not for the team at Devonshire Court residential care home, where management and staff excelled themselves by moving up from Inadequate to Outstanding in less than two years. Jenna Lomax talks to senior figures at RMBI Care Company and asks how they did it
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t’s fair to say that the private health and social care sector has had a bad rap lately – whether that concerns the Cygnet Whorlton Hall scandal, or headlines about the Ian Paterson inquiry. Amid these bad news stories, newsdesks sometimes omit to celebrate the sector’s achievements – good news doesn’t often make the headlines, attract the clickbait or bring in the viewers. But every day, without fail and without any praise from newsanchors, the UK’s social care workers and their home managers carry out intensive and necessary tasks taking kindly care of others that we can all agree deserve more note. Devonshire Court, based in the small town of Oadby near Leicester and owned by The Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution Care Company (RMBI Care Co), is one of many that deserves such praise. The care home, which offers residential services for the over 65s, was rated as Inadequate by the Care Quality Commission in November 2016; Requires Improvement in May 2017, but managed an Outstanding less than two years on, in September 2018. But how exactly did Devonshire Court turn it around? What did staff do differently to others to achieve this accolade, and how are they planning to maintain this status for the future? Devonshire Court’s November 2016 CQC report, written after an unannounced inspection the previous August, issued the provider with a warning notice in relation to governance and safe care and treatment at the service and said it needed to improve. Juliet O’ Connor, Devonshire Court’s home manager, had been in her role just six months when that inspection was carried out and the verdict delivered. But she was determined to take the reins and do something about it.
One vision “A clear plan of where we were going and what we wanted to achieve with clear timescales” was how Devonshire Court managed a successful turnaround between 2016 and 2018, explains O’Connor.
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HealthInvestor UK • April 2020
