Continuous improvement and a clear understanding of what’s expected and needed to deliver high-quality care are essential for Scotland’s care services.

The experienced team at Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd can support care providers and their teams to strengthen their approach, by helping them prepare for inspection, respond to feedback, and embed a culture of quality and improvement.

The Care Inspectorate oversees the around 14,000 registered care bodies in Scotland and, despite repeated calls for the care work to be recognised as a skilled profession, social care and care workers are often left in the ‘in-between’.

Lesley Sinclair, Director at Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd, explained the company can support staff and care home managers to gain confidence and improve care quality and outcomes.

She told healthandcare.scot that, together with Consultant Sheena Williamson, she hopes to expand the care home improvement work and collaborate with more care home teams to identify and address the challenges they face.

Lesley said, while common themes often emerge around structuring time for residents and aligning practice more closely with Care Inspectorate requirements, she works alongside the care home to find what their unique needs are:

“We want to get into the care homes in advance and think about how to reach people with what they’re particularly not doing very well.

“This is a critical friend coming in and helping to support you to: one, celebrate what you’re doing well and two, give you guidance and support around what you could do differently in order to meet the expectations of the Care Inspectorate.

“Realistically, there’s mixed needs across Scotland’s care homes.”

Sheena Williamson added that often their work focuses on looking to understand what each care home manager or team already sees, what they are doing well, what they feel is ‘fine’, and providing examples of great practice to work from.

Two main challenges they have seen again and again are quality assurance and care planning across a broad range of areas.

Sheena said care home managers often face challenges in understanding just how extensive the expectations are when it comes to quality assurance.

This spans from the physical environment’s cleanliness and how welcoming it is, to meeting individual resident needs and wishes, and ensuring staff rotas, training and support are in place.

Lesley added that Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd can provide particularly helpful guidance and support in the “triangulation around what areas of need are, care planning and the actions moving forward.”

She said:

“So care home managers might identify something themselves, they’re not tying it into the care plans for their residents, taking those actions and then following those actions up.

“There’s a theme of not connecting - and it’s hard, we recognise it’s not easy to carry all these elements.

“Whilst some managers might be doing different elements of it, we can come in to help them bring it together in its entirety to show what that quality assurance journey is.”

One care home manager who received support and training from the Insight Coaching and Consultancy team shared their experience:

“Getting Lesley involved in our “inspection ready” project has been absolutely priceless.  Lesley came into our office and worked closely with me (Registered Manager), over 5 sessions.

“Each session was working through what we had in place.

“Lesley offered insight into improvements, and allowed me to work in my own way, keeping in line with our organisation culture and values.”

Another shared their experience for two care organisations:

“Lesley's business consultancy service for both our care organisations has placed us on a journey where I feel we are getting it right.

“Not only for those who use our services, but also for those who work within our service, Lesley has supported us as a company to ensure we are getting right for everyone.”

healthandcare.scot is pleased to be working in partnership with Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd.

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