Case Study
Repositioning an unused care home facility
If a care home facility is not occupied, or is no longer needed for residents, repositioning its purpose can often be a beneficial way to continue helping the community.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Fulcrum Care was approached by one such case, to ensure that it could still have a positive affect for social care.
What issue did the care home have?
During the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, Fulcrum Care was approached by a care home that had an empty unit and was undecided as to how best to use the facilities to help alleviate the national health and care burden.
How did Fulcrum Care help?
After evaluating the site, our consultants were able to identify an opportunity for the care home to take pressure away from local NHS hospitals as a safe and trusted place for discharged patients to recover.
To properly reposition the care home as an appropriate facility, we helped to commission the empty unit and were successful in bringing the support services into action within two weeks, greatly reducing the local demand for hospital beds.
This included recruiting staff, providing the proper training for new care management teams and setting up the systems and procedures that would ensure the facility met Care Quality Commission (CQC) regulations and demonstrate good governance.
Fulcrum Care continued to help the care home provider with regular support and guidance on how to apply for grants for over a year following, to ensure they were successful with their new proposition. This required building new relationships with local authorities and third-party organisations, to create a reliable and sustainable facility for the future.
…we helped to commission the empty unit and were successful in bringing the support services into action within two weeks, greatly reducing the local demand for hospital beds.
What were the results for the care home?
With our help, the care home provider was able to reposition the empty facility into a completely new service that met the high demand and requirements needed, so that they could continue focusing on the bigger picture of providing great quality care.
This not only helped support the health and care sector in a valuable way during a time of national crisis, but also established new partnerships with supporting organisations that opened new commercial pathways for the care home.
Why should you consider care consultancy for your care home?
Although you may have full trust and confidence in your care home management team, there are a whole host of benefits to having an experienced care consultant visit your care home. The CQC frequently updates its guidelines for compliance, so having an experienced consultant to support your care staff can help ensure the best standards of care.
This includes:
- Giving confidence to the regulators. Having third-party, experienced care consultants evaluating your audits assures the CQC and care home funders that their standards are being upheld
- Preventing care home closures. Immediate crisis management that brings new balance and stability for care home owners, providers and managers
- Support for residents and care home staff. Evaluation of systems and training that bring positive changes for your team and their methods of delivering quality care
- Managing care home turnarounds. Helping your care home implement new systems that can improve your CQC rating
- Optimising recruitment and occupancy. Whether it’s improving your staff or occupancy retention, recruitment or more, we can help you optimise your messaging and approach (discover key tips in our free eBrochure, Recruitment and Occupancy: How to win the key battles for care homes in 2022)
If you’re a care home owner, provider or manager who would like expert advice on how we can help support your care home, then book a free 15-minute 121 with us.