Last month (21st – 27th February 2022) we celebrated #YouCanCare week. The purpose was to shine a spotlight on the incredible people working within the care sector (while encouraging others to come and join too). The week was led by the UK’s leading home care provider, Home Instead, and highlighted the rewarding role of being a caregiver.
What is a caregiver?
The caregiver title is a general term attributed to anyone providing care to people in need of extra help or support. This could be a family caregiver, a respite caregiver, a home caregiver, or a primary caregiver. In the context of elderly care, this job role typically reflects a private duty home caregiver, or senior caregiver. Arguably their greatest (and most overlooked) skill is their commitment as an advocate. In some cases, patients are not completely forthcoming with their physical or emotional needs and tend to downplay their discomfort when speaking to doctors. Caretakers and caregivers play an instrumental role in advocating for patients and ensuring honest communication with doctors. For example, by upholding patient preferences for treatment options, when they cannot or will not speak for themselves. Furthermore, they provide personal care in the form of dressing and bathing, medical care, and emotional support. They play a crucial role in uplifting and supporting communities.
How Advanced supports Social Care
Advanced proudly support domiciliary and residential care practices through our robust social care solutions. We work with over a thousand care organisations, providing access to up-to-date information at the point of care, so that the right support is offered at the right time. Through our extensive range of software solutions (including Staffplan and CareSys), we enable growth, while providing transparency and auditability.
Staffplan provides domiciliary care providers with intelligent rostering that helps to reduce the need for paper processes and offers more accurate data in real-time. The agility in planning ensures employers can benefit from reduced time spent on compiling staff schedules (by being able to simply copy schedules from one week to the next, and receiving automatic alerts when there are gaps that haven’t been filled). It also permits electronic call monitoring. With the iConnect application, you can provide staff with information on the go. This provides care organisations with better data, enabling more accurate invoicing, and ensuring care can be provided when scheduled. James Back, Director of Extra Hands Homecare highlights the difference Staffplan has made to their team noting: “The solutions from Advanced are an essential part of our daily working life. Having a visual image of what each day looks like helps us all immensely.”
CareSys permits residential care home providers to have well-organised working practices and reduces their reliance on paper-based care plans (while also providing mobile support to care workers). This supports all elements of a care home, from care planning modules which assist care providers at the bedside, through to interconnected back-office functions such as finance and HR. Its data-driven care plans allow care home providers to make more strategic and informed decisions when providing care to residents. Furthermore, CareSys helps to build a care history for its service users, allowing all future care provision to be tailored in a personalised manner. The personalised care it offers gives individualised electronic care plans for each service user, including care needs, medication, personal information, and risk assessments, enhancing the delivery of patient care. Mark Bailey, the owner of Fairway Cares states: “Thanks to Advanced, increases in efficiency and capability have been noted throughout our homes, meaning more time can be spent on what really matters.”
We will continue to empower our social care customers, so that their hard work in the community is even more efficient.
If you would like to find out how CareSys and Staffplan can support you, please read more about the diverse capabilities of our solutions.