Helping staff to support care home residents

Earlier this year, the Quality in Care Homes Team, together with colleagues from Sheffield City Council Contracts and Performance team, reviewed care home strategies with a focus on the Enhanced Health in Care Homes Framework (more information here). This gave the team an opportunity to work closer with Sheffield City Council colleagues and care homes themselves.

Following this Framework guidance, the Quality in Care Homes Team now takes on a more supportive role. This includes providing workshops to combat any concerns, in topics such as support planning, the law around mental capacity, and safeguarding.

Bringing professionals together

On the 8 October, the team also held the first Sheffield Care Homes Conference, which was attended by 115 healthcare professionals. The aim of the conference was to encourage staff across the sector to share experience, knowledge and best practice.

Quality Manager Helen Robinson said: “The first Sheffield Care Homes Conference was a huge success, and was a major step forward in building positive and collaborative working relationships with care home providers and managers.”

The team recognise that there is good practice taking place within care homes and are finding ways of sharing this information across colleagues. This includes organising a peer support group for cooks, which includes input and advice from the CCG diet & nutrition teams. The structure of the staff ‘best practice forums’ has also been reviewed to make the content more relevant. These forums also help to identify where additional support is needed. 

Engagement from managers at the conference has been vital in helping to shape the programme for the coming year, and the Quality in Care Homes Team look forward to continue working within these partnerships to make sure residents of care homes receive the best quality support possible.