Quality Assurance
Commitment
We are committed to running the homes in the best interests of the residents. The homes have been established with a quality orientated approach to the businesss with a high degree of quality awareness developed through all levels of staff training and management. To this end a pro-active approach is taken to introduce quality systems that incorporate audits and feedback so that every part of the home and its services can be evaluated to ensure improvements are continuous.
Investors in People
We recognise that our staff are at the heart of our success so for that reason we are committed to obtaining the Investors in People Standard in all our homes. Development of our people is key to enhanced performance which results in better outcomes for our residents. In the homes that have achieved the Standard there is a good understanding of how each member of the team contributes to the success of the home. Analysis of training undertaken and the resultant benefits mean that future training can be focussed where it will be most beneficial.
ISO9001:2000
We are working towards each home achieving ISO 9001:2000, the internationally recognised standard. The standard provides a framework for managing and improving our quality system. Whilst many people think that ISO standards are for companies producing products, in fact the standard provides a set of standardised requirements for a quality management system whatever the organisation does. We have found that the standard imposes a discipline for managing our processes and gives a framework for auditing our performance against our policies and assists us in our programme of continual improvement.
Monthly Audits
On a monthly basis an external Consultant makes an unannounced visit to each home to audit all areas in accordance with the required Regulation 26 inspection. A sample of residents, relatives and staff are interviewed and their views noted. The Consultant monitors key aspects of care to include resident falls, accidents and weights. Resident care plans are inspected to ensure that each resident’s plan is reviewed on a monthly basis and accurately reflects their current situation. On each inspection visit a section of the home’s policies are audited and reviewed and this ensures that each of the policies is scrutinised at least once a year. Feedback from the visit is given to the Manager on the day of inspection. All information from the visit is then collated and used as a basis for the monthly management meeting when any concerns can be addressed.
Laing & Buisson Customer Satisfaction Surveys
Providing quality care and service is our aim at all times, but of course, we need to be sure that we are consistently meeting the needs of our residents. To find out, we utilise the services of an independent, who are leaders in providing authoritative data statistics analysis. Laing & Buisson measure customer satisfaction at our homes using its standard next of kin customer satisfaction questionnaire. Laing & Buisson have used this survey to measure quality at hundreds of UK care homes over the past ten years. Complete anonymity is guaranteed as the care home company is not involved in the survey at all.
With ten years of data from many thousands of respondents Laing & Buisson are able to measure a home’s performance against all the other homes surveyed by Laing & Buisson. This enables a care home to judge its performance against hundreds of other homes and the homes can also track their progress from one survey to the next. The report clearly shows strengths and weaknesses and this can be used to direct efforts to improve aspects of the home that do not perform as well as other homes. Response rates are high compared with postal survey norms and the high response rates mean that the data is robust.
Customer Satisfaction Surveys are carried out on a six monthly basis.