Portfolio management
Selling your care home? You need to make a list
Bill Watson, co-director of social care service consultancy Insequa, guides you through a checklist of tasks before putting a care home up for sale
Care homes have been hit hard during the coronavirus pandemic and it has led some care home owners to question whether they wish to continue. Are you a care home owner considering the sale of your asset? To achieve the best outcome for both you and your valued residents, here is a to-do list to complete before you go to market.
Completely compliant At the beginning of this exercise, you must prepare yourself, your establishment and all its procedures, policies and practices to be scrutinised. Care regulation is rightly strict and intensive, so residents receive the best possible service – it is recommended to have in place robust compliance and governance systems that ensure safe delivery of care at all times. Increasingly, online solutions to compliance management are favoured by care home managers as they offer multiple efficiencies. They have the extra benefit of being viewed favourably by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) which encourages a switch to digital care approaches. Buyers also will welcome a fully integrated digital compliance system already in operation with a staff team trained in its use. At Insequa, we have developed an
online compliance dashboard called Evidenced Compliance that supports care providers in delivering great care and crucially makes it easy to provide the evidence to back it up. When inspectors or prospective buyers visit, they want to see proof of safe practices. They need to know you are doing a
good job and that all your policies are solid, your audits up to date and the compliance and governance of your establishment is robust. A smooth- running care home that is happy, healthy and doesn’t attract regulatory attention is an attractive proposition for an investor so put all your compliance issues in order.
Human assets Recruitment and retention is a serious problem in the care sector so a happy, stable and committed staff team will be viewed as a valuable asset. Reflect on staff relations and gather feedback to ensure you are doing your best by them. It is likely they will feel anxious about
the implications of the sale, so be ready to reassure and offer advice. Is your team well qualified? Well-rated care homes have ongoing staff training and development programs. Complete a skills audit of your staff
team and consider additional training if necessary - this benefits and motivates, encourages loyalty and shows potential buyers you have a well-managed set up and staff relations are good.
October 2021 •
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
Your rating matters Your CQC rating will naturally be of interest to any buyer. A ‘Requires Improvement’ rating will negatively impact the value of your asset unless you show evidence of how you have responded to and remedied problems. CQC reports are published online and can be read by anyone so be open and honest about any failings picked up and show prospects how you have fixed them. If your sales plans are more mid-term, engaging the services of expert social care consultants is one way of improving your rating. The difference between a ‘Good’ and ‘Requires Improvement’ rating is significant in terms of reputational damage, staffing losses and restrictions to expansion plans and it can seriously damage your asset value as it hands potential buyers leverage in negotiations. At the other end of the scale,
‘Outstanding’ ratings are desirable if not entirely without problems of their own. “Investor ambition is to have ‘Outstanding’ care homes throughout their portfolios but operationally to maintain the rating is very hard work,” says
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