Smooth Operator: a Staffordshire care home’s switch to digital

This article was first published in Caring Times July ’24 as part of DiSC’s Clock is Ticking campaign, calling on care providers to access government funding and support whilst it’s available.  

At HR Care Homes we run two friendly, family-run homes in Staffordshire. Passed down through three generations, Hanford Manor and The Old Rectory offer a really homely atmosphere, thanks to this strong family connection and their relatively small size which means our teams can really focus on the needs and wishes of individual residents. 

Until September last year (2023) both of our homes were entirely paper-based. We had talked a lot about going digital and were well aware of the benefits, but it was going to require significant investment in relation to the size of our homes and the number of people we support. We were finally able to make the leap at the end of 2023, as a result of funding support from the digitising social care programme. 

We did lots of research into Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) providers, including meeting several suppliers to discuss options in more detail before narrowing it down to two. We put those options to the team and they unanimously agreed on the same one.  

The staff had lots of notice before we went live with the new system, including time to just ‘have a play’ with the technology and the platform so that when it came to launching, they were familiar and confident with the system.   

There was a strong sense of expectation, and naturally a degree of nervousness before we launched. We planned to go one floor at a time, but go-live on day one went so well and so smoothly we went live with all floors at once the next day, and we haven’t really looked back since. 

We have a real breadth of ages amongst our care team – which plays a big role in our family atmosphere. We did have a couple of team members saying ‘no I can’t put the information on there, can you do it for me?’ but once they got the hang of it they actually enjoyed updating care records on the mobile phones we’ve set them up with.    

The time saving is huge. We now have staff who are able to sit and spend more time with residents. It’s also less stressful for them – they don’t have to sit down and hand write notes, and they don’t have the frustration of being told it’s not detailed enough, because the DSCR platform has all the prompts and fields we need. 

Care planning is a different world now. There’s no way we could keep on top of it all before. Now we get reminders when care plans need updating, which is really helpful for senior carers and managers. They go orange and red automatically, so it’s really easy to keep track of them. More importantly though, I think the care plans themselves have got a lot better because we’re now putting everything online. They can be read through by colleagues, and updated and changed in real time, to make them more individual and person-centred, which has been another real positive.  

Incident forms and reporting have got a lot better as well. You can do immediate analysis, record complaints and keep them updated so that’s a much better and more open process.  

We hope to be able to make care plans accessible to families, and are thinking now about the right balance of information to ensure it’s dignified. We’re looking too at access to and linking with GP records.  

The Old Rectory and Hanford Manor are now fully digital. We’ve learned a huge amount about our system. Every day is a learning curve and we share best practice across our sister homes to ensure the best quality is achieved.