Be Caring Liverpool

Tina Welch
Operations Manager

Local Leadership

“We have achieved stability in the service and with the team. We have a solid foundation with the revised CQC rating, enabling us to grow safely and consistently. Our office will be relocating to a more beneficial central location. The new structure within the Liverpool service has allowed each member of the team to have a more focused and targeted approach, all working together towards the same goals – to be the best we can be, supporting people to live at home with the quality of life they want.”

Overview

We’ve been providing homecare for people in Liverpool for since July 2017. We have over 100 colleagues providing more than 2,500 hours of care and support every week for 201 people, and their families, in areas including: Anfield, Fazakerley, Croxteth, Norris Green, West Derby, Old Swan, Dovecot, Knotty Ash Wavertree, Picton, Childwall, Gartson, Speke and Belle Vale.

Metrics and Stats

People being supported

Colleagues who deliver the care they aspire to

Hours of care and support delivered every week

Number of colleagues

Colleagues that would recommend us as a place to work

Achievements

The previous 18 months have brought about many changes and successes including; a restructure of the Management Team and welcome arrival of Tina Welch (Operations Manager), re-tender and award of Be Caring Liverpool as a Tier 1 provider on the Help to Live at Home framework, and a full CQC inspection resulting in Good rating.

Care Quality

Good

CQC Rating

Our focus on quality assurance within the office was recognised in our CQC inspection which took place in November 2019. The feedback on the day was positive, and gave us the opportunity to share what we have achieved over the past 12 months. The CQC Inspector was impressed with the new structure and organisation of the branch. The revised improved rating came through in December with a strong ‘Good’ rating in all areas.

The CQC recognised the improvements made since their last inspection: “The service had made improvements to its governance structure, along with more robust and effective quality assurance systems to monitor the quality and safety of the service. Significant improvements had also been made to the call scheduling system used at the service, ensuring that colleagues were able to provide individuals with the care they needed at the planned times.”

Our Regional Quality Manager, Bronwyn Burgess, worked with the team to implement a digital care planning system and ensure high levels of compliance through the care planning and review process. Bronwyn delivered training to the Team Leaders and Community Coaches on personalisation, ensuring care plans are person-centred and outcomes focused plans. CQC stated: The information in people’s care plans was regularly reviewed and people and their relatives were involved in this process. One person said, “Yes I’ve been involved [with the care plan] and listened to, if anything changes it’s easy to update.”

Recruitment

67

..new colleagues since January 2020

In 2019, one of our biggest challenges in Liverpool was recruitment. We were struggling to fill our inductions; with 47 people attending and completing inductions in 2019. Since 2020, we have successfully recruited and inducted 67 colleagues (up to 31st August) – if this trend continues, it will see us recruiting more than 100 colleagues in 2020, an improvement of more than 110%.

We changed our approach to recruitment and onboarding, supporting us to achieve our planned growth and provide care and support to more people in Liverpool. This consisted of:

• Re-focused our advertising strategy with an emphasis on social media – 70% of our applicants come to our applicant portal via social media

• Shifted to values-based recruitment, attracting people without care experience

• Implemented digital elements to the process including video-based interviews to minimise drop-out rate due to our office location

• Implemented a new onboarding process, which has helped resolve any issues quickly as well as reducing staff turnover

Growth and Sustainability

26%

… growth in home care services

In the summer of 2019, we welcomed the introduction of Tina Welch, Operations Manager, which has allowed the whole team to play to their strengths. Tina has worked with her team, drawing on their skills and care knowledge and quickly brought focus on co-ordination and compliance, ensuring rotas are smart and efficient. Run forms were implemented, with Care Workers having set rotas and Individuals provided with high levels of care continuity.

Not only has this assisted with growth from 2,100 to 2,700 weekly hours, the service has also seen significant improvements in their performance data and levels of colleague engagement and empowerment. This reflects the open culture that Tina and her team have cultivated – 83% feel that they’re listened to and feel like their opinions seem to count, and 100% feel supported by their immediate line manager.

We were successfully appointed to the Liverpool Homecare framework as a Tier 1 provider in November 2019. We are now able to pick up care packages across a wider geographical location and have extended our delivery into Anfield. We continue to support people leaving hospital quickly and settling them back into home quickly and safely through the Homefirst+ service, which has been extended for a further 12 months until 31st March 2021.

Care in the Community

Ellie
Service User

“I can’t thank Be Caring Liverpool enough for all the help I’ve been given over the last few months.”

I live with my son, but during the lockdown I was unable to see the rest of my family. This was so hard for me and I really do feel if it weren’t for the carers, I wouldn’t have got through it. They always ask how my family are, especially my Dad and Grandson, and they helped me to use Facetime so I could ring my Grandson and see him running round.

My carers also always make time to sit with me and I have built up good relationships with them all. It feels more like my friends are coming to see me, rather than help towards my medical conditions.

I was in hospital for 2 weeks during the pandemic and had coronavirus. When I came home, the carers treated me exactly the same as before, if not even better. The liquid medication I had to take tasted horrible, but my carers made it easier by having a drink ready for me to have straight after!

I’ve had other care companies before and had bad experiences. I wanted to find the right company for me. Be Caring came recommended by someone who’d chosen them to help look after their Dad. I’m much happier with my care now – I really can’t fault the office team or carers. From the first day the new carers came, I noticed a huge difference – not just in myself but also in my flat which was clean and tidy, just how I liked it.

Our Priorities

ROOM FOR GROWTH

As a service, we’ve already made significant headway in attracting new Care Workers and retaining that talent. Shifting to a more digital process meant we were able to remove one of our most significant barriers – our office location, which is difficult to get to by public transport, meaning potential new starters frequently dropped out of the process.

OUTSTANDING CARE

We will achieve CQC Outstanding in at least one Key Line of Enquiry (KLoE) at our next inspection

We’ve made great strides to improve our quality and embed systems and processes to maintain our quality and compliance in key areas of recruitment, training, supervision and support, care planning, risk assessment and care quality. We have more to do, and more to achieve, especially if want to achieve Outstanding in one KLoE.

In meeting this ambition, we now have 2 Community Coaches, who support our Team Leaders around Best Practice visits, providing additional shadowing and mentoring for Care Workers around care delivery, promoting a strong, visible person-centred culture so that:

They know people’s preferences.
Champion choice, flexibility and control.
Act promptly to respond to need.
Support community participation

COMMUNITY PRESENCE

We will re-locate our office and become more visible in our communities

Our ambition as a service is to find a new office location, which is more centrally located, with more space for colleagues. We hope this move will continue to support our drive to attract talent to Be Caring, which in turn, will enable us to grow our capacity to deliver high quality care to more people who need it.

We envision our new office as:

A place for colleagues to come together, socialise, share best practice and learn from, and support each other.
Being central to us having a real impact in local communities, being visible with our partners and making those important community connections.

SUSTAINED GROWTH

We will continue to attract and retain talent, helping us to consistently deliver more than 3,000 of care every week

One of our key priorities is to sustain high quality growth, and this will be supported by strong recruitment and retention. We’ve already seen a significant improvement in recruitment and our turnover has improved by 14%.

We’re continuing to make improvements and have implemented a new onboarding process to ensure we offer the right support, early – and settle people into their roles.

Over the next 12 months we will consistently deliver more than 3,000 hours of care and support every week.

Our Colleagues: Meet Jackie

Jackie Seasman
Care Worker
Started March 2018

“Looking back, we’ve had a lot of change recently, but it’s all been for the better. You need change, things need to evolve. The changes I’ve seen since when I first started are 100% better. It’s so much better when you ring in about anything now. I know who’s in the office, what they’re role is; everyone picks up the phone.”

How did you come to work for Be Caring?

I looked after my Dad when he was very poorly. We had a few weeks with him at home before he passed away, with carers coming and going. They were specialist Macmillan carers and were absolutely lovely. They really took pressure off the family. And I thought ‘I’d like to do that’.

I joined when it was CASA and have been here over 2 years 5 months. Before that I’d had a 13-year career in banking in a variety of customer facing roles.

It’s great because I’ve always wanted to do something a bit more on my feet (I didn’t want an office bottom!) I absolutely love my job now. People’s skills are transferable, you don’t necessarily have to have been a carer for 15 years to know what good practice is. It’s having the right values and way with people that counts.

What do you consider the best part of your job?

I appreciate the skills that I’ve learned. Sadly, I lost my Mum over Christmas. It was very sudden, we only found out she had cancer a few months before she passed away, but I count myself lucky in being able to look after my Mum at home with my sisters.

I taught them how to move someone safely, how to change them and wash them while they’re in bed. All these skills came in very useful for our family. It meant we could look after Mum ourselves without any help from outside.

I count that as a privilege really that we were able to do that. We offered to get her carers and she was like ‘nope, our Jackie can do that!’ My sisters were so glad that I was there to show them how to do it the right way.

What do you see yourself doing in the future?

I don’t want to be sitting in an office. My skills are people based – talking to people, caring for people – that’s what I’ve done all my life. It’s clear I love chatting to people!

In future, I’d like to complete my latest qualifications which have been put on hold because of Covid. I’m not the world’s best writer, but I can put things into words, so my tutor would record our discussions as part of the assessment. I like that there’s always something new to learn in this job.

How has Be Caring changed over the years you’ve been here?

Looking back, we’ve had a lot of change recently, but it’s all been for the better. You need change, things need to evolve. The changes I’ve seen since when I first started are 100% better. It’s so much better when you ring in about anything now. I know who’s in the office, what they’re role is; everyone picks up the phone.

We get messages when people move roles or if they’ve got back from holiday. You get to know their voices. If I’ve got a grievance – and sometimes you do – I’ll always get a call back from someone who can help me. And Tina is fantastic – you can talk to her about anything at all.

What would you change?

Most carers go over and above what they’re supposed to do. When I was in banking, we were paid overtime, you were never expected to work for free. It’s completely different with care.

My sister has just been made redundant from a job she was doing for 27 years. She thought about going into care because she’s 57and doesn’t want to retrain. But she’s just got herself a job as a cleaner, working for Swansea university. She’s getting £10.50 an hour and she’s in charge of a mop and bucket. It’s awful, it needs sorting out.