At New Horizons Care we are committed to delivering an open and transparent service and keeping our clients and their wider families up to date with our news. So, we’re pleased to be able to share the results of our latest inspection by county commissioners.
While the Quality Visit went into great detail, we can summarise some key comments and outcomes here. The inspector reviewed our processes, confirming that we had everything in place and even had a few they hadn’t seen elsewhere, demonstrating our commitment to detail.
We know that our service depends on the quality and professionalism of our team. We work with every New Horizons Care team member to ensure they feel valued for their work and recognised when they go above and beyond. This includes our newly introduced Random Acts of Kindness and staff award scheme.
We have also introduced banding, which ensures every team member has a development path, with clear routes to progression, including training to enhance their skills and knowledge. This gives our team confidence that we are invested in them and improves our staff retention.
So, what else did the report comment on?
Recognising our achievements in a Quality Visit
Digital presence –
We’ve been working hard on our logo, branding, website and social media presence to ensure New Horizons Care has a visible digital presence, continuing to build engagement and relationships with clients and staff.
Improving the way we work –
We’ve introduced new software across the team that gives us a live feed and access to GP and NHS records. Our policies and procedures have been reviewed and rewritten to be client or staff-specific. And we’ve developed client-specific training that can be tailored as needed. Every change we make has made our service more client-focused for a better care provision.
Working with our teams –
As we said, our service depends on our teams. So, we’ve reviewed the way we communicate there as well. Our probationary staff now have weekly supervisions, including knowledge checks on different topics, and supervisor-led welfare and wellbeing checks. We have weekly update emails, secure group chats for communication, and regular surveys for feedback.
We extend this to our agency staff whenever we work with a secondary agency. We track and monitor compliance and provide agency staff with the same supervision and management opportunities as our in-house team.
Great results for our clients, our staff and our future
As a result of being proactive with our teams, sickness and absence are heavily reduced. We have had 32 people onboarded successfully and in an average of 27 days compared to the national timescale of 59 days. Our clients benefit from fantastic ongoing service and our flexibility to deliver responsive care as required, such as implementing additional care provisions in two hours for a client in one example.
The commissioners told us we’ve never had such a good quality visit, and we’re pleased to confirm that no concerns or referrals are to be made, which is exceptional and proof we are well led.