June 27th to July 3rd is Care Home Open Week, hosted by Championing Social Care. A celebration of how care homes can be a cornerstone of the community, here’s our advice on how to build confidence and new relationships between residents and their loved ones with a high quality of care.
Working closely with the local community can be very beneficial for care home owners, providers and managers, creating new opportunities in which residents and their loved ones can interact, develop and flourish in a better care environment.
Whether your care home has registered for a Care Home Open Week materials pack or not, regularly building on community presence can be universally positive, promoting better relations with your care home and local authorities, and potentially increasing your care home commercials.
Ensuring families have confidence in your care home
Although potential residents may have the final say when deciding whether to choose your care home to live in, their loved ones have an increasingly pivotal role in that decision. This makes it vital that your care home delivers the correct messaging, experience and environment that assures your residents’ loved ones that they can expect a great level of care from your care management team.
Some key areas this can be achieved through are:
- Simple investments in your care environment. Creating a welcoming space for visitors and residents does not have to be lavish or costly. People are drawn to personal touches, which can be as simple as a fresh lick of paint, regularly changing flower vases and always providing refreshments on arrival.
- Keeping on top of compliance – and making CQC reports available. Key decision makers will often want to see how your care home is performing in recent CQC reports, to assure them of your care home’s governance and service. Ensure your care home has the best systems in place by holding a mock inspection.
- Taking control of communication. Regular news and updates form your care home can make families feel more involved with the day-to-day quality of your care service. This can be through social media, email newsletters and bulletins, or sharing positive stories from your care home with local media outlets.
Discover more ways to build confidence with your care home in our previous insight.
Optimise your care home messaging
What makes your care home stand out? How does your care team deliver a service that isn’t like any other? Being able to demonstrate and communicate the answers to these questions can help build better relationships with your community — and make it more attractive to potential staff.
A great way to start is by identifying the benefits of your care home and what factors increase your overall appeal. For residents this could be regular activities and events, attention to detail that creates a more comfortable care environment, or ensuring that the same care staff members are always available for resident visitations. For recruitment, it could be through positive testimonials, clear career progression and training resources.
Involve your care staff when brainstorming your care home messaging, for honest and natural feedback on which areas of your care service stand out the most — or read our full advice, here.
Creating an exceptional customer journey at your care home
Our final focus may seem similar to our previous points – but fundamentally the most important, so be prepared to get a little technical!
Creating an exceptional customer journey for your care home underpins the impression that you give to visitors, enquiries and families, so putting the work in now can help to increase your occupancy rates and ultimately your commercials.
By mapping out the scripts, processes and touch points that your care home staff can follow can ensure that the same attention to care and quality is given every time to improve your conversions, but it takes a whole team effort.
For our full guide on how to create your very own customer journey strategy, including example forms and timelines, read more here.
As experienced care consultants, we have helped many of our care home clients identify the positives of their care service, create better messaging and relationships with their community and incorporate new and creative systems that benefit their residents wellbeing.
If you are a care home owner, manager or provider who would like advice on how to create more community opportunities in your care home this Care Home Open Week, then get in contact.