UK Care Week Review
For providers to appear more frequently on any self-funded shortlist, they now have to give serious consideration to providing quality online information, and being fully transparent about that information, and thinking carefully about how they communicate the personality of their care home.
“Put the extra effort into providing as much about your homes as you possibly can,” Debbie explained. “Prospective clients want to see pictures of the rooms, the lounge, the garden – and they want to see a lot of them.” Being transparent about price is key. “To make sure you’re included in a shortlist, include your prices. I know this is still a tricky subject for providers, [but] self-funding families want to know the price. That’s all there is to it. On countless occasions, families have told us ‘there was no price, so we didn’t think we could afford it’” Debbie revealed. “If the only reason you’re not displaying
your prices is because you don’t want your competitors to know what you charge, trust me – they already do,” Debbie continued. “The only people who don’t know what you charge are your potential customers.” The onus, then, is very much on care homes to convert leads into placements. “Success falls into two categories,” Debbie pointed out, “the tone of your response, and the speed of your response. “In our experience, the best way to get a response is to call and be friendly and supportive, or send a short friendly, email suggesting a time [to talk]. But if you don’t do this until the day after you’ve received the lead, you’ve almost certainly lost that client.” She added: “If I was to give any single piece of advice about how to convert an
enquiry in this digital age, it would be to respond immediately. And if you can’t, have them sent to somebody who can.”
Driving positive change We stayed with the Keynote Theatre for the 11:00 panel discussion Driving the positive change for the future of care hosted by Jon Wilkes of the Institute of Health & Social Care Management and featuring Jayne Connery of Care Campaign for the Vulnerable, Nicola Richards of the National Care Association, Five on a Bike’s York Woodford-Smith, and Oli Johnson of SONA. The panel discussed the big issues facing care, starting with a recent finding that thirty five per cent of workers in social care do not feel that their skills are appreciated, understood, recognised, or even acknowledged by the general public. We often hear how the general public do not feel that social care is a professional career choice, and Jon asked the panel whose fault they thought this was. Not surprisingly, high-profile cases of abuse in care homes loomed large in the panel’s view, as these often eclipse the great work that care home staff do, day in, day out. Jayne was quick to point out that
negative media portrayals had to be taken seriously. “Supporting families and carers, I do see the challenges that they face, and I think it would be very simple if we all just buried our heads in the sand and say that The Daily Mail writes negative stories. The stories are there,” she said. “I visit too many corner courts where I see elderly with unwitnessed injuries to sit here and not be true to what the care sector delivers. “I think we have to be honest in the sector, and with honesty has to come
transparency, and then maybe we’ve got a starting point.”
Here, as in all things, there is a balance to be struck. “We don’t actually look at the amazing
work that goes on in the care homes on a daily basis,” said Nicola. “We’re doing an absolutely fantastic job, and that doesn’t get highlighted.”
There is also no getting around the fact that the social care workforce continues to be badly paid. “We can’t ignore that it’s a lower- paid work force,” Nicola pointed out. “People think that it’s an unskilled profession when it’s absolutely a skilled profession. “We need to be competitive – we’re losing
staff to Amazon, to McDonald’s … we just can’t get care stuff coming into the sector like we used to,” she added. Of course, questions of pay dovetail into the broader issue of the viability of care businesses and the social care sector as a whole.
“There is a general misconception that care homes are making lots and lots of money and profits,” said Nicola. “The sector has been underfunded for decades. The pandemic has highlighted some of the cracks in the system, how fragile the system is, and the majority of that is down to increasing costs. “Until we see money get to the front line where it’s needed, we will see homes close.” “It’s actually our carers that are holding the care sector together,” Jayne pointed out, perhaps not unreasonably.
“It can be an absolutely amazing job,” said York. “The people we interview that [have been working] in care homes for 30 years absolutely love it. They love the residents and they are really passionate about delivering great care.
“There’s a whole host of problems in
the sector that need to be looked at,” he continued, “and we need to keep working to resolve these, but every day we meet people who say ‘I would never work anywhere else, I love this so much’ … You won’t get that at Lidl.”
Discussion turned to the CQC, and the question of whether every care provider should be routinely inspected. “I’m an advocate, I think we need
inspection”, said Nicola. “[But] I think there’s a real lack of a sympathy towards care homes and what we’ve been through. You get different inspectors coming into different homes. One home may be good, another home with the same policies and procedures is different. On a recent
May 2023
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