Background
Tranquillity Care Solutions is a domiciliary care service specialising in adult palliative care and family support within the Colchester and Tendring areas of Essex.
The business offers a unique service, providing person-centred, holistic approach to end of life care within service users’ own homes. The agency works alongside other health professionals and agencies to deliver care services that enable the wishes of individuals and families to be met wherever possible, with consideration and respect.
The management team has over fifty years of experience and set up the agency because it was passionate about providing quality care to those in need of such services. The team is very clear about the motivations behind the business.
Caring for people nearing the end of their lives in their own home enables service users to feel more comfortable. They are able to remain close to their loved ones and be looked after by staff who are as passionate about giving care with sensitivity and compassion as a family member would be.
Tranquillity Care Services aims for a standard of excellence where specialised care staff provide quality 24 hour care management across all health conditions. Such high standards require an exemplary approach to compliance and meeting the regulatory standards of the CQC.
The Challenge
“Tranquillity Care Services is a start-up business and I was recruited along with the deputy manager to help set the business up from scratch”, says Kerry Williams, Registered Manager. “With well over 20 years each in the care profession, our combined experience of different ways of managing compliance was pretty good.”
“We had both used a manual, paper-based approach before, as well as compliance management systems. A manual approach to compliance management and creating your own policies and procedures is very time consuming. I know what a lot of the policies should be and what the procedures should contain. But knowing them and being able to write them down are two different things,” says Kerry Williams.
“Also the time spent on sorting out the compliance side of things takes time away from delivering care. It is easy to get bogged down documenting things like reviews or updating care plans. Before we could even start providing care services there was also the problem of registration to overcome,” Kerry Williams says.
The Solution
The QCS compliance management system is composed of two elements. The online system provides computer, tablet and smartphone access to the complete suite of compliance management policies and procedures for service providers and care workers.
There are specific issues related to domiciliary care services that make it unlike those provided in an institutional care setting. These are essentially management issues of supervision, support and training that stem from geographical dispersion of the workforce. QCS compliance management helps address problems such as variations in practice, providing advice and support, training and professional development and coaching and mentoring.
“Following the recommendation of our MD we contacted QCS and were talked through an online demonstration with a consultant on the phone. We could see that the system would be able to help us with CQC registration and managing compliance for the domiciliary care services we intended to provide. Before deciding to go with QCS we were given access to the entire system for 24 hours so we could take a closer look at any areas of specific interest”, says Kerry Williams.
The Results
Tranquillity Care Services commenced registration in November 2013. The business became registered to provide services at the end of February 2014. As the business takes on more contracts it is set to grow its staff levels appropriately using the QCS system HR tools. These allow the business to customise templates such as application forms and employment contracts to meet its exact requirements, as well as providing the documentation to manage every aspect of staffing from training, development and disciplinary processes.
“QCS was very useful for achieving registration successfully,” says Kerry Williams. “There is a lot of research and hard work required to support registration. It can be an exhausting process, but the system made it much easier. There is no way we could have written down what was required on our own.”
“The telephone support for the system is excellent. Right through from when it was demonstrated online to when we needed help during registration, there was always someone on the end of the phone to help us. Without QCS I don’t think I would have been able to get through the fit person interview. It definitely helped me to feel more confident about being grilled by a CQC inspector,” Kerry Williams says.