Just like any business, ensuring continuous improvement in your care home is crucial to providing the best care to residents. Although this might look daunting at first, there is plenty you can do to make your care home more appealing and welcoming. This will also help you enhance the health and wellbeing of residents, as well as increase care home employees’ job satisfaction. As a result, this will have a significant impact on employee productivity and operational efficiency. If you are unsure where to begin, today we have prepared a few practical tips to help you improve your care home by making small but effective changes.
Encourage Hobbies
It’s crucial to come up with various ways to engage residents and make them feel at home. For example, facilitating hobbies can help you encourage residents to learn new things and be active. Even if you have a busy schedule, incorporating fun activities and hobbies do not have to be difficult. Be sure to create a timetable and set aside a few hours every week, which can be dedicated to your residents’ hobbies and favourite activities. Spend some time with them to find out more about their interests and likes. This way, you can make it easier for them to pick up a new hobby and keep themselves busy.
Choose The Right Equipment
Another important aspect of ensuring your residents feel comfortable is choosing the right equipment, which can support them with different daily tasks. For instance, for many people with limited mobility, a trip to and from the bathroom might be impossible. This means that choosing the right commode chairs will make a huge difference. You can explore a wide range of commode chairs at NHC Group, as well as other personal hygiene accessories. It’s advisable to learn as much as possible about commode chairs so that you can choose the best one for your care home.
Collect Feedback
If you are looking to identify the exact areas of your care home management that need improvement, collecting feedback might be the right solution. You might want to ask residents and their family members about the quality of care they receive from the staff. This will help you evaluate employee performance and determine if there are any changes you need to make, such as providing additional training. Feedback from residents will allow you to reward employees that often go above and beyond. In addition, you will learn more about residents’ views on the available facilities, food options, and entertainment in your care home.
Promote Physical Activity
There are many ways to promote physical activity and boost residents’ health and wellbeing. You may encourage them to take daily walks, as this can increase their energy and elevate their mood. Even if this means walking around the care home or in the garden, light exercise will improve heart health. This will also help you demonstrate your priorities to residents’ families and friends. In addition, consider organising nature walks with a group of residents so that they can spend some time together outside and socialise. Also, include yoga and meditation to help residents relax and sleep better.
Provide Personalised Care
As an effective care home manager, it’s essential to encourage your team to provide personalised care and maintain quality. This means that employees should take their time to get to know residents instead of treating them as part of their to-do lists. However, the importance of personalised care can often be overlooked in busy care homes. Therefore, it’s recommended to introduce weekly goals that employees can focus on. Encourage them to expand their knowledge or enhance their skills in different areas of the job. For example, this might involve learning more about medications or spending extra time with residents.
Improve Communication
When it comes to ensuring continuous improvement, establishing open and transparent communication channels is a key element to consider. It might be beneficial to implement a digitised workforce management software solution, which can provide your staff with real-time updates and notifications about residents’ needs. This also means that your employees won’t be occupied with time-consuming and stressful admin tasks. Instead, they can focus on providing superior personal care to residents. Additionally, communication between staff members will improve, ensuring all residents’ questions and requests are answered promptly.
Create A Pleasant Environment
To help residents settle into their new homes more quickly, you should focus on creating a positive and welcoming atmosphere. Your care home should be a place of relaxation, where residents feel comfortable and happy. Therefore, you should make communal areas as homely as possible by adding a few soft furnishings, such as rugs, cushions, and throws. Incorporating music can be another great way to relax residents, especially those who live with dementia. Also, you can introduce different smells, such as lavender or cinnamon, which can make any room feel cosy and warm.
