Quality Strategy

Foreword

Building on over 20 years experience, Craig Healthcare provides residential care and support to older people in Northumberland with a special expertise in dementia care.

According to the Office of National Statistics, in 45 years time, there are likely to be additional 8.6 million people aged 65 and over in the UK. Alzheimer’s Research UK have found that there are just under 1 million people with dementia in the UK today, and this will increase to 1.6 million by 2050. Therefore, as well as developing plans to ensure we continue to deliver our current residents the best quality services, we will look at ways in which we can meet the increasing demand for services over time.

Our compassionate and caring approach is the key to our success and we aim to deliver services that give people control of their lives regardless of their health condition. We promote supported independence and deliver a service that meets the expectations of our residents and their families. We believe in promoting well-being and quality of life that is within the control and choices of the residents themselves. We consider it a privilege to be part of a person’s life journey and we provide excellent standards of end- of-life care.

This plan sets out how we will use our resources over the next 5 years and our aims to continuously improve our services using both traditional and innovative methods to further enhance people’s quality of life while in our care.

Lucy Craig, Managing Director

Our Strategic Quality Priorities

1. Invest in Quality Care – commitment to the provision of a quality service that meets the needs of the people we care for. We will strive to be a person centred organisation with people at the heart of it all; both the residents we support and for the staff we employ.

We will put decision making as close to the people we support as possible; transforming a traditional hierarchy to one that is truly person centred.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Implement a system to evidence excellence in our services
• Develop a world class Activities and Engagement Programme
• Implement a cohesive Communication Plan to improve communication
• Build on our specialism of dementia care by working with trusted and respected national and international leaders in dementia care.

2. Invest in Our Workforce – our employees will continue to be our greatest asset and we will commit to ensuring that our valued staff feel supported and engaged in their employment with us.

We believe that our employees deserve the best that we can offer as a local employer.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Develop a plan for proactive staff well-being
• Review and elevate our approach to training and development of staff
• Implement a Staff Benefits Programme
• Achievements and Awards Programme for staff

3. Leading the Way in Shaping the Future of Adult Social Care – as a local organisation that understands local challenges, we will actively seek opportunities to develop new systems and share our good practices in order that adult social care can be more positively influenced on a wider local, regional and national scale.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Take part in research and development projects that relate to the improvement and knowledge of dementia care
• Become active participants in local ICB (Integrated Care Boards) that intend to integrate health and social care systems

4. Delivering Value for Money – commitment to ensuring that we follow principles of being fair and transparent in our costs and providing services that give stakeholders reassurance of value in what they receive.

In delivering our priorities we will consider the value for money implications throughout; this means that we may increase our spending in our to achieve a positive outcome.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Develop a plan for on-going improvements to the physical environment
• Implement a Value For Money Review across all suppliers
• Participate in the government initiative of Fair Cost of Care with the purpose of receiving a fair fee to deliver value for money.

5. Work Collaboratively with Stakeholders – commit to developing relationships with external organisations that will further contribute to the quality of the services we deliver.

We will look to actively engage with organisations in the short and long term in order to improve.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Improve our involvement with relatives and friends
• Support relative well-being and understanding of services delivered
• Achieve Outstanding Status with Care Quality Commission
• Implement a cohesive Communication Plan to improve communication

6. Deliver Environmentally Sustainable Business Practices – by developing these we will not only provide healthier places to live and work, we will make our own contribution to ensuring that our residents and employees children and grandchildren and the generations to come are able to benefit from this place we call home; Earth.

To demonstrate this, we will strive to:

• Review our supplier contracts to ensure they meet environmentally sustainable standards
• Review our internal systems within our services to improve environmental outcomes for staff, residents and the local community.

Key Facts

• All of our services are rated GOOD by the Care Quality Commission.
• Cramlington House Care Home is rated GOOD with an OUTSTANDING feature in Caring.
• All of services run at on average 97% occupancy levels and all often run with waiting lists due to our popularity and reputation.
• Our reputation among local authorities is excellent with approx. 75% of our referrals coming direct from local authority teams.

Stakeholder Involvement

Surveys and Responses

In order to develop this strategy for long term quality, we have invested our time in engaging with stakeholders. We feel that people who come into contact with our services, however brief or long-term, are those whose opinions matter.

“Quality is not what we put in; it is what the customer receives”

We sent out surveys to relatives, friends, service users and staff in September 2022 to gather views and we used this information to ensure that we are focusing our priorities in the right areas. This information has then been considered at Board Meetings and our plans and priorities agreed upon. Our response rates for surveys were 23% return rate from staff and 27% return rate from relatives, residents and friends. We are very keen to impress that our stakeholders views are important to us and we encourage as many people to be involved in giving their feedback as possible.

Further Stakeholder Involvement

As this strategy progresses through its 5 year life span, we will manage each project and task individually and report back to stakeholders for feedback on its progress and achievement on an annual basis.

We will continue to hold regular home-specific Relatives and Residents meetings where people are able to attend and join our community. We will sometimes use these meetings to share Quality Strategy progress or actions.

We will set up some specific Quality Strategy Forums for stakeholders to opt in to attending and become an active part of the delivery of this plan.

Next Steps

Our next steps will be to develop and implement our 5 Year Development Plan; this will be shared on the website www.craighealthcare.co.uk for all to read. The plan will include specific actions and timescales and goals for us to achieve.

If you have any questions around this Quality Strategy please contact the Project Leads, Gemma Wilson on gemma@thecarecoach-nesta.com and Ray Robson on ray@craighealthcare.co.uk

The Board

The Board are the senior people within the organization who are responsible for the oversight and implementation of the actions and priorities in the Strategy.

Lucy Craig – Managing Director and Board Chair
Emma Carmody – Finance Manager
Ray Robson – Operations Manager and Project Lead
Gemma Wilson – Independent Consultant and Project Lead

 
Download Quality Strategy Brochure