www.mcch.org.uk
newsletter for mcch staff
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Summer issue 14
Like and follow us: twitter.com/mcchcharity facebook.com/mcchcharity Picture: SOMs Julianne and Sarah explain mcch standards at the event for team leaders and managers.
Peter Thompson Chief Executive
Great news! If there is any kind of news you want to hear about, it’s great news! And this issue of mcchlife is packed full! Chief Executive update: I am pleased to tell you that despite the difficult financial climate we are able to make a one off payment to staff this year, following a positive Unison ballot. Information regarding the payment was emailed to services, and is on the intranet. We are planning to make these payments in the August pay. We are keen to recognise the continued commitment of our staff and to share our success. Another way we can recognise and share success is through the mcch Awards. Please nominate your team members for an award. Winners receive a gift card, so look out for nomination forms soon. Some other good news is that we have been successful in retaining some of our contracts in Bromley and Greenwich for another 2 years. And we have won the retender of the Falconwood children’s respite centre in Bexley. We also won a new contract recently as our first mental health services in the Bexley, providing residential care, supported living and support to people in their own homes. Peter
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Who will win this year? You are all doing great work supporting people to live their lives. We hold the mcch Awards every year to celebrate the work that you do. Nomination forms will be coming out in August, so make sure you nominate someone for an award. Each winner will receive a gift card worth £50 and teams receive a team gift.
Nominate a member of staff, team or volunteer.
Last year’s volunteer of the year award (pictured here) went to the Hart and Rushmoor wellbeing centre.
Jenny Wells
Jeanette Edgar
Stephen Winter
Sue Beaumont
Developing our business There have been changes to the way we support new referrals. Jeanette Edgar, Head of Business Development, explains: “We no longer have a Nominations and Allocations Panel (NAP). We made the process much quicker and easier, so now the senior operations manager will meet up with the person and make the decision without a panel. We are currently reviewing the application forms to make these simpler too. “We have also made enquiries to mcch much easier. If somebody needs support, they will call our new freephone number or fill out an online form. Our team will coordinate the process so that the person is visited by someone at mcch within 10 working days.”
Transitions work “Sue Beaumont is our newest recruit to the team and is working to develop services that support young people in transition to adult services. Her work will involve going to schools, colleges and school groups, and speaking with commissioners about new services.”
Enquiries to mcch We have made it easier for people to contact mcch if they need support. Call the freephone number: 0800 028 28 15
Fill out the ‘apply online’ form on our website
The business development team will contact the person immediately. If we are unable to support them, signpost to other services. Within 10 working days, the senior operations manager will arrange for the person to be visited (by them or a team leader).
Within 28 days, a contract can be offered.
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Tell us how we need to
improve Anne McLean HR Projects Manager
We will be running a staffsurvey in the autumn and have been working with an independent consultancy to plan this. We are consulting with different groups of mcch staff and with Unison to agree the best questions to use. The Staff Forum will be contributing ideas too.
Give us your comments in the staff survey in September
We want to understand what staff think about working for mcch and what we should address. The findings will be shared and we are committed to working together to address what they tell us. Look out for the survey, we do want to know what you think.
Do you want to
save money?
Every staff member can start saving their money, by using uBenefit, the staff discounts website. Buy a gift card or voucher of £5 or more before 31 August. You will be entered into the prize draw to win one of 5 shopping vouchers worth £20. Go to www.ubenefit.org.uk and log in (username: mcch + first name + last name (Eg: mcchjohnsmith) Never logged in? Your password is: mcch
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Win £20 with uBenefit www.ubenefit.org.uk
Get to know about
Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Terry Wills Corporate Safeguarding Specialist The Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) was added to the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA) in 2007 and became legally active in England and Wales in April 2009. Following a Supreme Court ruling in March 2014 there has been a sharp rise in the DoLS applications to local authorities. Figures provided by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) show that in May they were informed that 1,741 DoLS applications had been made. This compares to an average of 450 notifications per month between January and March before the Supreme Court ruling.
mcch policies • We have produced a new policy called O13 Deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) and court of protection court orders procedure. This is in the operations manual. • Our O32 Safeguarding children and young people procedure was updated in April. This is also in the Operations Manual. These policies explain how staff and volunteers should work together to protect adults and children at risk. Please read them. More information about DoLS:
The Supreme Court ruled that people are deprived of their liberty if they: • lack the capacity to make decisions about their care and residence, and • are subject to continued supervision and control under the responsibility of the state, and
http://supremecourt.uk/decidedcases/docs/UKSC_2012_0068_ Judgment.pdf
www.adass.org.uk/number-ofdols-referrals-rise-tenfold-sincesupreme-court-ruling-jun-14/
• lack the capacity to leave their care setting.
Supporting your staff We did presentations at team meetings in June to explain the new SH18 Managing sickness absence policy and procedure. The procedure sets out how to support the wellbeing of staff at work and to give managers guidance around good attendance from their teams. Speak to your manager and your HR team if you have any questions about the procedure.
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Stories in brief Marine Parade opens its doors In June, Marine Parade opened its doors to members of the public as part of National Care Home Open Day. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) visited as well as a care manager from Kent County Council, friends and family. Caroline King said: “We really enjoyed hosting the day. It has given people a better understanding of what we do and many of our guests said they would love to come again!”
Learning disability awareness week In Bexley the day services have been celebrating learning disability awareness week. They put together a ‘what makes you proud’ project that included Big Brother style activities. The Carlton Centre started an art project using mosaics which is close to being completed. Well done to everyone for taking part in learning disability awareness week.
New offices Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich We have moved offices from the Howbury Centre to the Thames Innovation Centre. This new office is home to our Bexley, Bromley and Greenwich directorate and is located on the right as you walk through the main doors. We have our own training room and there is a coffee shop in the main entrance hall.
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Leading change Alex Seery
Executive Director of Operations and Business Development We recently held an event at Hermitage Court for our team leaders and managers called ‘Leading Change’. The day opened with an inspiring, funny and moving talk from comedian John Williams called “my son’s not rainman”. John talked about the public’s perception of people with autism as well as his own experiences of bringing up his autistic son. Three short and focused sessions followed, delivered by Sarah, Julianne, Dan, Paul, Brydie and Sam. The sessions gave our operational leadership team important information about using our standards in our work, IT and how it will support management roles in future and the Institute of Leadership Management Level 3 course. After lunch staff got into teams to complete teambuilding challenges. This included drawing shapes blindfolded and memorising pictures. In a very close contest team ‘Blackpool’ were victorious. The last activity of the day was Dragon’s Den. Teams came up with innovative projects or services that mcch may wish to buy. Teams pitched their ideas to the ‘dragons’ in front of a large audience. The winning idea was ‘try before you buy’ by the ‘Sunhats’. Finally a special mention and congratulations to Rob Andrew and Mandy Kennedy who received our ‘outstanding learners’ awards from the first two groups who completed the ILM ‘Your Leadership Matters’ course.
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International visits Jacky Hammond
Director of Operations for MHA3Es This year the International Initiative for Mental Health Leadership (IIMHL) exchange and conference was in the UK. We were visited by Kay Fletcher, Chief Executive of Comcare Trust, from New Zealand. We took her to visit our mental health services and the inpatient facility at KMPT. We were also joined by Jan Hutchinson, Centre for Mental Health and a Professor from Canterbury Christ Church University who specialises in carers support. The conference had key note speakers from around the world, including Geraldine Strathdee, National Clinical Director for Mental Health for NHS England and Norman Lamb MP, Minister of State for Care and Support at the Department of Health. The themes from speakers and delegates were: • working together across the world to improve a person’s recovery journey • putting new innovative systems in place to do things differently to meet a person’s expectations in the future If you want to know more about the exchange or the conference, please contact Jacky Hammond j.hammond@mcch.org.uk
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New transition service Richard Webb
Executive Director of Housing and Development
Fundraising developments
In April we purchased a small 150 year old primary school in Tovil, Maidstone. We plan to develop this into a new service for young people in transition. We plan to convert the building into 7 self contained flats plus an additional training flat/ communal area. The new service will support people with learning disabilities aged 18 to 24. We will support young people to develop the skills to live more independently in the community, linking with employment and further education. The service will benefit people leaving residential schools and will give them a chance to live in their own flats for up to 3 years, with on site support until they are ready to move on. We are currently selecting our contractor and hope the new scheme will be open in September 2015.
We are raising money from charitable trusts to develop Falconwood’s garden into an accessible playground. The playground will include an eagle nest swing, a wheelchair accessible roundabout and a Niagara water tray. So far we have raised £15,000 towards this fantastic project. We hope that the new playground will be ready by Spring.
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New computer software
CRM:
Customer Relationship Management Jo Woollett
Project Manager
What’s good about CRM? • You access CRM through Outlook. • Information is stored in one place.
By the end of 2014 we will have a CRM system. It will help us manage our relationships with our customers by giving us the right information to do this well. Customers include people we support, their relatives, friends and professionals which include commissioners, other providers, people who fundraise for us, contractors and so on. We will use Microsoft Dynamics CRM. We have had it tailored to meet our needs. All staff with an email address will be able to use the system. Training will be given. When it goes live it will be there as part of Outlook when you log in. The system will bring information from Select, Recordbase and the housing database into one place, so it is important the information on these systems is accurate. You can read the latest updates on the intranet. If you have any questions, please contact me: 01622 722535
j.woollett@mcch.org.uk
• It contains information about services and contacts. • It stores fundraising data. • It is an auditing system. • It stores customers and their purchases from our enterprises.
How will CRM help us? • It will give a better service to our customers – 360° view. • We will be able to find information we need - when we need it. • Shared information – no need for lots of separate databases, spreadsheets and lists. • It will save us time. • A simpler internal audit process. • Help us win tenders and grants. • Give us a clear picture of existing and potential supporters. • Help us with targeted marketing. • Help us meet our contract requirements.
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Webroster:
Electronic timesheets and rostering Stephen Leadbetter Head of ICT
Webroster is a new computer application that will replace your current paper timesheets. We have been piloting Webroster in some of our services and have had positive feedback.
What’s good about Webroster? • It will save hours in processing timesheets. • Your manager can process your timesheet immediately.
How will Webroster help us?
Webroster makes it much quicker to plan and book shifts and also helps to fill vacant shifts. It uses electronic timesheets, which are sent automatically to payroll from the line manager. They can be sent to payroll as soon as a shift is complete.
• Webroster will roster the right person to the right shift.
When will I be using it?
• A wide range of standard and bespoke reports are available from Webroster meaning you can quickly and easily access the information you need.
We will start making Webroster available for support staff to use from October. Full training will be given. You will receive a briefing in the next few weeks with more information. If you have any questions, please contact me:
• Webroster automatically generates timesheets and gives your line manager the option to verify them on screen.
• Links directly and instantly with our payroll system.
01622 722423 s.leadbetter@mcch.org.uk
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Running mcch - how are we doing? Jan Oliver Executive Secretary Our reputation is based on the quality of our services. It is also based on how good our management systems are and the governance of mcch. Governance means making sure that mcch is run well. We are now a member of the European Institute of Governance awards (EIGA). As a member, we will work to best practice standards and raise our profile at regional, national and european levels.
How will we do this? We are doing a self-assessment and we will be in contact with staff in the next few months. We will find out about your experience in mcch and highlight best practices. We will also consider improvements.
Why do we need an EIGA award? We want to prove that we are running mcch really well. The benefits of achieving this award will be the assurance that we are part of an organisation that is run really well. Externally this award will be recognised and will help us to show our commitment to excellence. If you have any questions, please speak to Jan Oliver. 01622 722410
j.oliver@mcch.org.uk
mcch One Hermitage Court Hermitage Lane Maidstone Kent ME16 9NT t. 01622 722400 f. 01622 722450 www.mcch.org.uk twitter.com/mcchcharity facebook.com/mcchcharity mcch is a registered charity number 1156486 and a company limited by guarantee (registered in England and Wales number 8971493).
Congratulations to the Holly Lodge team for winning a National Learning Disabilities award.