“Our future is about striving towards Outstanding”
Transforming our business starts with our people
“In April 2018, I became CEO of Be Caring, which was known as CASA. I knew then, that in order to turn the business around, to support our colleagues to deliver the highest care and allow us, as a business to achieve our true potential, we needed to start with our people – to transform our culture – and I’m now proud to say that every single service we deliver is rated Good by CQC.”
– Sharon Lowrie, CEO
As an employee-owned social enterprise, we re-invest any surpluses into developing and supporting our colleagues – so they have the skills and confidence to deliver high-quality, personalised care and support for people and their families.
Our culture and values are at the heart of everything we do. In just over 2 years, we’ve:
- Rebranded from CASA to Be Caring, co-designing our mission statement and values with colleagues.
- Restructured and reorganised our business and services, starting with our leadership and management teams.
- Begun supporting more people now than we did 18 months ago, and prior to the Covid pandemic.
- Developed our information intelligence to really understand our data so that we can make the right decisions that benefit both us as a business and quality of care and support we deliver.
- Rewarded our colleagues with gift vouchers and offered additional confidential support through our Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) delivered by Health Assured.
Sharon says, “One of the greatest challenges in recent times has been the Covid-19 pandemic. I’m so proud of every one of our colleagues, how we’ve responded to protect the lives of the people we support, and as a business to protect the lives and livelihoods of our colleagues. Despite the pandemic, we’ve continued to deliver more care for more people and recruit and employ more people, and at the same time – keep investing in and improving the business.”
Our priority over the next 12-18 months is to continue our transformation journey, to keep understanding and improving the business – the biggest marker of success will be that we achieve CQC Outstanding in at least one area (Key Line of Enquiry – KLoE) in every service, whenever they are next inspected – that’s our ambition.
To ensure we achieve this, we’ll be focusing our efforts on:
- Investing in training and learning including a career development pathway that will see people progress into Social Work, Nursing or Therapies within 7 years of joining us.
- Continuous improvement of our operating model – where the people we support have the care and continuity they want and where colleagues know when and where they’re working – through effective co-ordination and rota management supported by well organised office teams.
- Bringing Employee-Ownership to life through local Voice champions who will support fellow colleagues, the people we support and the communities we serve.
Externally, we’ll continue to develop local and strategic partnerships that will enable us to:
- Transform homecare by working in partnership with commissioners, health and social care partners and the voluntary sector We want to deliver care that is flexible, person-centred and supports people and communities to achieve their fullest potential
- Strive for better terms and conditions by campaigning at a local and national level with the GMB, which will see the publication of an Ethical Home Care Commissioning Charter
Our Performance
We’re always seeking to improve our service delivery and quality and want to demonstrate we can do this while growing as a business.
Be Caring (All)
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
1,087
1,196
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
17,997
20,338
Number of care
calls every week
17,927
20,915
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
93%
96%
Number of
Colleagues
775
813
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
77%
83%
Liverpool
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
170
201
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
2,122
2,684
Number of care
calls every week
3,284
4,583
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
92%
98%
Number of
Colleagues
114
119
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
88%
91%
Manchester
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
215
220
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
3,114
3,003
Number of care
calls every week
5,046
5,127
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
88%
94%
Number of
Colleagues
169
126
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
63%
71%
Leeds
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
227
293
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
3,042
3,605
Number of care
calls every week
3,961
5,262
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
95%
97%
Number of
Colleagues
165
142
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
79%
82%
Tyneside (Home Support inc. C&P & Bungalows)
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
367
383
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
6,062
7556
Number of care
calls every week
4,846
5,173
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
95%
95%
Number of
Colleagues
206
299
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
74%
81%
Tyneside - LIFE & Allendale
2019
(Feb/Mar)
2020
(Aug/Sep)
People being
supported
108
99
Hours of care and support
delivered each week
3,657
3,490
Number of care
calls every week
790
770
Colleagues who deliver
the care they aspire to
95%
95%
Number of
Colleagues
121
127
Colleagues that would recommend
us as a place to work
74%
81%
Our Response to Covid
Our priority has been making sure the people we support, and our colleagues safe. Throughout the pandemic, our colleagues have come together to support each other, and have gone above and beyond for those we support, and their families, particularly those who needed to shield or self-isolate.
Our Achievements
We’re incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made over the past 18-24 months. As an employee-owned social enterprise we wanted to make sure we laid foundations for progress, getting the basics right, establishing a new leadership team that would promote a culture of honesty, openness and challenge.
Quality Care
All our services are rated Good by the CQC
Three of 4 of our services were inspected in 2019, two of which had been rated ‘requires improvement’ at last inspection for breaches of Health and Social Care Act 2008 regulation.
Our priority when taking on the transformation of our culture, was to ensure we achieved a ‘Good’ rating across all our services. We know that these ratings demonstrate that we’re delivering an effective and effective and consistent level of care, adhering to national standards and ensuring we’re recruiting to provide care to meet people’s needs – but we will not be stopping at ‘Good’ – we believe we’re already making good progress towards ‘Outstanding’ and will be ready for the next round of inspections.
CQC Reports:
Liverpool
Rating: Good
Date Inspected:
21st November 2019
Manchester
Rating: Good
Date Inspected:
1st September 2017
Leeds
Rating: Good
Date Inspected:
18th April 2019
Tyneside
Rating: Good
Date Inspected:
2nd May 2019
Recognising our Culture
We’ve been Recognised for our Culture
In January 2019, we re-branded from CASA to Be Caring Ltd following a of co-design workshops and engagement sessions with our colleagues – resulting in our new mission, vision and values – a critical step on our culture transformation journey. This was supported by a re-structure of the Senior Leadership Team – to ensure we had the right people, with the skills and the passion to drive the organisation forward – to embed an open and transparent culture that promotes employee-ownership and colleague empowerment, which has been recognised externally:
- Highly Commended for Employee Ownership Culture at EOA Awards (November 2019)
- Finalists for Best Medium Organisation and Best Culture in a Crisis at Business Culture Awards – Finalists (September 2020) with winners announced in November 2020
New Funding and Care Models
We’ve worked with Commissioners to Develop new
Care and Funding Models
Sharon Lowrie has experience as a Finance and Managing Director, and she brings with her a logical pragmatism, alongside her business acumen. This means she’s able to develop financial models that are both cost-effective, and challenge the status quo – models that are often built on principles of; collaboration and partnership with commissioners, trust, shared risk and open-book accounting.
In Newcastle, we successfully gained 2 new Supported Living Services: The Augusta and Holmes Dementia Bungalows, and Allendale Court, which is a 14 bed/apartment accommodation and support service for young adults with Learning Disabilities and Autism. In partnership with our commissioners, we’ve successfully demonstrated that the combination of Individual Service Funds (ISFs) with a fixed cost / variable rate model results in:
- Space and freedom for us as a provider to respond flexibly – without the need to request changes for changes in care services
- Better outcomes for residents because of the flexibility and trust in us as a provider to support people and do what’s right for the person
- Financial savings and capacity in the system – a shift of resources away from contract management and Social Work involvement
Information Intelligence
We’ve developed our information intelligence
Our data is crucial to effective decision making. Ensuring we had accurate, useful and timely data has been essential to helping us significantly improve the quality of our services, as well as enabling our local managers and colleagues to make timely, informed decisions – focusing on the right things at the right time.
Sam Booth, our Head of Performance, who joined us in August 2019, has been crucial in understanding and maximising the use of our systems – and supporting our colleagues to get the most from their data. Sam quickly designed and developed a dashboard of key metrics – focused on co-ordination and quality metrics – it’s been a labour of love, but it has successfully galvanised the buy in of colleagues, creating the ‘battle of the branches’ – in which colleagues want to see how they’re performing, actively engaging in regular performance reviews.
This is another key facet of our culture – transparency, challenge, learning and sharing best practice.
Growth
We’ve achieved 13% growth within existing contracts
Our focus over the past 2 years was to both consolidate and secure our existing services. This meant delivering on contracts and services where we able to achieve the growth and delivery required to be financially viable and sustainable.
We successfully secured contracts in Liverpool, Manchester and North Tyneside to maintain three of our existing services, whilst also gaining two supported living services in Newcastle: Allendale Court and Augusta and Holmes Dementia Care Bungalows. We also took the difficult decision of withdrawing our services in 3 areas.
Despite this, we’re now:
- Delivering an extra 2,300 weekly hours of care (13% growth)
- Supporting an additional 118 people every week (11% more)
- Completing 3,100 more care calls each week (18% more)
Our Plans
We’ll continue to focus our efforts on getting the basics right, to continue our transformation journey. We want to continue to grow, to provide Outstanding care for more people and transform the sector.
Growth and Sustainability
We’ll achieve sustained growth within our existing contracts, whilst maintaining high quality care and support, demonstrated by CQC Outstanding ratings
Over the next 12-18 months we will continue to support our local leadership teams to embed best practice operating models that ensure we’re delivering high quality care with regular Care and Support workers as part of a local Care Teams, supported by improved retention, and where our colleagues feel confident that their income is consistent and stable. Our priorities and objectives under Growth and Sustainability are that we will:
- Provide between 3,000 – 5,000 weekly hours of care delivered by every home care service
- Continue to develop our operating model, investing in our local leadership and management structures, and systems
- Achieve CQC Outstanding in at least one Key Line of Enquiry (KLoE) in every service when they are next inspected
Investing in our People
We’ll mobilise local action through service-based, Voice Champions programme co-designed by our colleagues
We will invest in our colleagues, in their learning and development and informal opportunities to celebrate their success and realise their potential – we will create opportunities for our colleagues to excel, to test their skills and use their knowledge and relationships for the benefit of our colleagues, the people we support and our communities.
Under our Investing in our People priority, we have identified 2 objectives:
- Every service will have Voice Champions mobilising local action for colleagues, the people we support and our communities
- We will have a career development pathway from entry level through to level 7 for Care and Support Workers
Transforming Home Care
We’ll transform home care through our Community Teams model
Our ambition is to be the provider of choice – to transform the sector to deliver outstanding care. We have a commitment and desire to work with system leaders, to achieve the ambition of home care transformation, to demonstrate that resources can be re-distributed and long-term, savings are achievable, while funding homecare in such a way that providers can employ Care Workers on fair terms and conditions, including salaries.
We’ve identified 3 objectives under our Transforming Care Priority:
- We will work with our commissioners to develop new models of care and new funding models
- We will participate in local community partnership networks
- We will support and promote the GMB Ethical Home Care Commissioning Charter