Care Provider Newsletter

December 2023

Adult Social Care

Dorothy House Education & Training

Dorothy House have now added more training dates into next year, allowing you and your colleagues more time to plan for your personal development. For details on their training offers that are available to book now, please visit their training calendar using the links below.

Adult Safeguarding Portal

Further to the development and the briefing sessions in shaping and developing the professional portal, we are pleased to advise that the portal is now live.
 
Please save the portal landing page to your favourites: https://adults.bathnes.gov.uk/web/portal/pages/home

• clicking on 'Reporting a Safeguarding Concern'
• click 'Next'
• click 'Login or Register'
• then finally 'Register for a new account'

Further information on how to do this can be found in the attached “Part 1 Portal User Guide”

Once you have registered your account, you are able to submit portal referrals.

We have developed two other documents to help you: a “Quick Guide” and “Part 2 Portal Guide to managing your portal account”.
If you have any technical difficulties, such as ‘code not received’, portal down etc. please contact the following:

Email: LiquidLogic_AdultsHelpdesk@BATHNES.GOV.UK
Call: 01225 396476 – Liquidlogic Adults Helpdesk

For any problems or guidance regarding the referral content itself.
Call: 01225 394200 - The adult safeguarding duty number.

Activities Co-Ordinator Forum

A New Year brings new ideas! Our next Activity Co-ordinator Meeting is taking place on Thursday 11 January 2024. The meeting is taking place from 10.30am to 12.00 midday and will be held at Cleeve Court, Twerton, BA2 1RS. Please can you do your very best to allow your staff to attend the meeting.

Free eLearning Resource on Data Protection

Care providers can now improve and assess their staff’s knowledge of data security using a new eLearning resource, specifically designed for the care sector. The free course, which reinforces the Data Security Standards and the Care Certificate, includes four modules and one online assessment.
 
Care managers, trainers and staff can access the course and corresponding user guides at www.digitalcarehub.co.uk/elearning.

Dignity Bibs – What a Great Idea

One of the primary reasons adults wear bibs is to maintain their dignity during mealtimes. For individuals facing challenges such as limited mobility, tremors, or difficulties with swallowing or coordination, spills and stains are often unavoidable. The bibs provide a protective barrier, preventing food and liquids from soiling clothing. A member of staff at Cranhill Nursing Home has taken it upon herself to make dignity bibs for all the residents using blouses and shirts which gives the appearance of a regular shirt/blouse. The bibs are also machine washable so can be reused time and time again. 

Playlist for Life

Music that gives you that flashback feeling can be a lifeline if you get dementia. Playlist for Life was founded in 2013 to change that by sharing the power of personalised playlists – all the tunes that are meaningful to an individual gathered together, often on an mp3 player, to create ‘the soundtrack to their life’. Our vision is that every person with dementia should have access to a unique personalised playlist and everyone who loves and cares for them should know how to use it to make living with the condition easier and happier.

We are working with partners large and small to:

1. Make the power of music and Music Detective skills general knowledge by raising awareness and public education.
2. Establish a vibrant, grassroots network of trained health and care professionals, care homes, volunteers and community Help Points across the UK.
3. Identify a clear, accessible, legal route to make and use playlists in every setting.
4. Secure the resources required to deliver our objectives.

 We offer a free webinar on the first Tuesday of every month which is aimed at care professions, which your members would be very welcome to book on to. You can find out more and book a place here.
 
We also offer longer training courses with prices starting at £20 for our eLearning. Details on all our courses can be found here.

BEMS

Exciting developments are underway following the B&NES Community Nurse Conference in June 2023! BEMS (local not-for-profit GP Federation in B&NES), in collaboration with other partner organisations, is scoping a series of free, in-person, educational training events tailored for Care Home staff across B&NES. The aim of these sessions will be to cover essential topics such as Diabetic Foot Care, Respiratory care, Tissue Viability, and End-of-life support, led by local healthcare professionals. BEMS plan to pilot this initially within one area of B&NES, before considering expanding to other areas in B&NES. This will be great opportunity to enhance skills and knowledge as well foster integrated working between teams. Look out for more details and communications in the New Year. 

Capacity Tracker – Public Facing Website

The Capacity Tracker are developing a new tool to help members of the public to search for Care Home vacancies via a new public facing website, CareFind. The Capacity Tracker will provide this as a free service for Providers, on an opt-out basis, with some conditions in place.

The concept of CareFind has been developed with the support of the DHSC and NHSE.  CareFind aims to give benefits to both providers and people looking for care services, building on the information and resource of Capacity Tracker.

In the New Year we will be running training sessions on how to create your public profile that will be visible on CareFind. To register for a session, please click on the appropriate link and register.
For later dates, please visit our resource centre here

Care Home Volunteer Service

Over the last 12 months we have been putting you in touch with Frances our Care Home Volunteer Co-ordinator who has in turn been partnering up residents to the care home volunteers. This has been such a welcome service and so rewarding for the residents especially for those who don’t have any family or friends who visit.

It is with regret that as from 31 March 2024 the Trustees of the Care Home Volunteers have taken the decision to close the charity. The service will continue working to support the volunteers until it closes, and it is hoped that the current volunteers will remain in the home. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact frances@carehomevolunteers.org.uk.

Digital Care records

Good quality records underpin safe, effective, compassionate, high quality care.  They communicate the right information clearly, to the right people, when they need it.  They are an essential part of achieving good outcomes for people who use services.  A good digital records system has more benefits than a paper-bases record system.

Bath and North East Somerset Swindon and Wiltshire Together along with Wiltshire Care Partnership are offering funding for Digital Care Records.   The offer is for £140.00 per bed/service user up to a maximum of £14,000 per CQC location ID. For small (less than 10 service users) locations we make special arrangements and look at each of these on a case by case basis. You must be CQC registered and transferring from paper to digital, not from one system to another. You must also choose one of the solutions from the assured solution list. Assured Solution List - Digital Social Care

Having a digital system that records training for staff and publishes rosters does not count as a Digital social care record, so locations that already use that type of software would still qualify for grant funding to implement a DSCR.

If you are interested and want to know more please contact Paul by emailing paul.dlh@wiltshirecarepartnership.org.uk.

KPI Data Submission Dates

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are targets that help you measure progress against your most strategic objectives. We collate these on a quarterly basis and as a requirement of the contract the performance of the Services shall be monitored by the Council in accordance with the Contract, Risk Management and Quality Monitoring of Care Homes Policy, the terms of this Individual Service Agreement, the Services Specification, the Key Performance Indicators, and the respective ISA Forms for Service Users placed at the Home.

Please note the Quarter 1 and Quarter 2 submission dates have already passed and anyone who has not submitted their KPI’s for these quarters please do so by close of play Friday 08 December 2023.

Wellbeing Resources

• BSW Wellbeing Matters Service

• Live Well B&NES

• Samaritans

• Hospice UK bereavement and trauma line

• Our Frontline

• Bath and North East Somerset Community Wellbeing Hub