A message from Professor Martin Green, Care England:

Dear public,

Last week in response to the COVID19 outbreak the Government called upon retired nurses and doctors to return to work with the line ‘your NHS needs you’. Care England, the largest representative body for independent providers of adult social care, is complementing this message, ‘social care needs you too’.

The adult social care sector too will require the support of the nation in the coming months if it is tocontinue to support some of society’s most vulnerable at these most worrying of times. We encourage those who are willing and able, to do so by joining the adult social care workforce.

Our message is that social care is still open for business – social care needs your help.

• Firstly, we call upon retired staff with experience in the adult social care sector to engage in this national effort to keep social care operational.
• Secondly, those who are currently not working; particularly those in catering, hospitality or air travel, as a result of the outbreak are encouraged to support the adult social care sector.
• In addition, we encourage the UK’s population to utilise the provisions made within the Coronavirus Bill with regards to ‘Emergency Volunteering Leave’.
• Lastly, if you have previously worked in the social care sector, there has never been a more important time for your skills and knowledge to be reclaimed.If you’re in one of these groups – social care needs you.Many providers have noted that they already see rising levels of Covid-19 related absences. This combined with the already extremely high levels of vacancy rates in the adult social care sector has the potential to create a perfect storm for the sector. However, with your help we can act to avert such a reality and the negative implications it would have upon some of society’s most vulnerable individuals.

Yours faithfully

Professor Martin Green OBE

Chief Executive: Care England
DH: Independent Sector Dementia Champion

If you are interested in joining Apple House Care Homes, we are now recruiting a task force to support our regular team. We offer online and on-site training, a fast turn-around of DBS and referencing checks and excellent remuneration. There are three alternative routes to joining our team:

1. Experienced care workers are invited to apply for one of our few vacant permanent positions, or:
2. We invite those with or without experience, but who are compassionate, trustworthy, reliable and hard working to join us as a paid Social Care Apprentice on a 3 or 6 month fixed term contract to support people with a learning disability in their community based care home during the pandemic. There may be the possibility of joining our permanent team.
3. Join us as an unpaid (but much appreciated) Social Care community volunteer!

Please reach out to the care home you are interested in joining by going to their page on this website via the link in the main menu and telephoning the home directly. Please note that all new recruits will be located where needed most! Thank you for considering responding to this Call To Arms and joining the Social Care recruitment drive! Together we can beat this pandemic and keep the most vulnerable in our communities safe and thriving.

— Jane Montrose, Managing Director, Apple House Care Homes

• The public – people who use services, families and carers – know what high-quality care looks like and what they have the right to expect.
• Staff working within adult social care understand what high-quality care looks like and how they can contribute to delivering it.
• Providers of adult social care share a clear vision and commitment to providing high-quality care.
• Commissioners and funders of adult social care support the commissioning of high-quality care and high-quality integrated care.
• National bodies (including regulators and improvement agencies) support integrated working across the system to champion high-quality care.

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“Having carried out over 33,000 inspections of around 24,000 different services, most of the adult social care sector is meeting the Mum Test, providing safe and high quality care that we would be happy for anyone we love, or ourselves, to receive. This is thanks to the thousands of dedicated staff and providers who work tirelessly to ensure people’s care is truly person-centred and meets their individual needs.”–Andrea Sutcliffe, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care at the Care Quality Commission.

Apple House care homes are among the 77% of adult social care services that are ‘good’ and, as CQC themselves say, this should be celebrated.

But what of the rest?  How can providers pass the Mum Test?  How can they ensure that the service they provide to others is of a standard high enough that they would be satisfied to receive it themselves or for their loved ones?  What of the estimated 20,000 vulnerable individuals of our society currently being supported in one of the 2% of care homes that are ‘inadequate’ or the 17% that require improvement?

CQC inspect all social care providers and base their inspections around five key questions:

1. Are they safe?
2. Are they effective?
3. Are they caring?
4. Are they responsive?
5. Are they well-led?

CQC, and many other organisations, believe that staffing levels, training and motivation directly impact the quality of care delivered.  We agree wholeheartedly! Look again at the five key questions: all can be attributed in large part to staffing and not just numbers but quality.  Staff recruitment and retention is a challenge but we must always remember that it’s not just about recruiting, but it’s predominantly about ‘who’ we recruit, ensuring they’re caring and kind.  In our opinion, care is only as good as the people giving it; care homes only as good as their teams.

The good news for those of us within the learning disability specialty, is that 88% of LD specialism care homes are ‘good.’  This demonstrates that LD providers are ‘organising their services to meet people’s needs, and staff are involving people in their care and treating them with compassion, kindness, dignity and respect.’ [CQC, 2017]  However, it also means that 12% are ‘inadequate or require improvement.’  That’s a lot of people who are not being supported adequately or appropriately which of course is a great concern.

Pulse Today, the primary GP website, suggest that ‘The fragility of the adult social care market is now beginning to impact on the people who rely on these services.’  There are more people with long-term illnesses, more diagnoses being made, a challenging economic climate: all of these factors mean a greater demand on services and more problems for people in accessing appropriate care and care of a high standard.

Is funding affecting quality?

Institute For Government, in their spring 2017 publication, ‘Performance Tracker’ for adult social care, refer to the rise of adult social care in the political agenda late last year when announcements were made of additional social care funding.  However, they suggest that since 2010, spending on social care has fallen in real terms by a whopping 6% – but this is a fluid and ever-changing figure and we don’t want to get too political on our blog!  Suffice to say there are ever-increasing demands on state-funded social care.  In this regard, they refer to the ADASS survey [Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, ADASS Budget Survey 2016, ADASS, 2016, p. 11] in which 82% of local authority social care directors reported that providers in their area were facing ‘quality challenges’ due to financial pressures.

How does the culture within care homes impact on quality?

“Positive culture was something that characterised good performance and improvement. Both staff, people who use services and inspectors commented on particularly positive and supportive cultures characterised by staff who were well-trained, caring, skilled, dedicated, enthusiastic and focused on positive outcomes for people. The cultures of the services were also highlighted as being open and transparent, with a culture of improvement based on good practice and feedback.”–CQC on positive culture in the best care homes.

So, culture within homes – culture that nurtures, motivates and supports staff is definitely a major factor in making things better within adult social care.  We believe that this ethos stems from good, solid leadership and positive teamwork.  We have a culture of not wearing uniforms: we work in people’s homes, they don’t live in our workplace.  We have a culture of being ‘family welcoming,’ as demonstrated by our accolade from John’s Campaign, supporting family friendly culture within residential care settings.

As CQC say, ‘There is a lot to be proud of in adult social care, but still more work to be done.’

Adult social care is evolving and it’s crucial that care providers evolve too, that we all continue to provide the very best quality of care possible and pass ‘The Mum’ test.

— Jane Montrose, Managing Director, Apple House Care Homes

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