Elderly lady - Advantage Accreditation

New research on vascular dementia

The Alzheimer’s Society has produced a spotlight on ongoing research into vascular dementia, the second most common form of dementia. The spotlight highlights a number of ongoing projects working to understand how to prevent the disease taking hold. One such project, led by the University of Oxford, is testing to see whether surgical procedures...

Skills for Care logo

Not long left for Skills for Care managers’ survey

Skills for Care’s Managers and Nominated Persons survey ends tomorrow. The objective is to find out what the daily life and tasks of a care manager or nominated person consists of, so that Skills for Care can make recommendations for improvements. The survey is in part triggered by a lack of knowledge, but also...

Care home opens its doors to toddlers

A care home in London has become the first intergenerational facility in Britain by opening a nursery in its building. The move is expected to lead to both economic benefits for the care facility, and welfare benefits for the elderly residents. The facility is an example of an innovative, intergenerational solution to Britain’s care...

Your work experience checklist

If you’re a residential or domiciliary care organisation taking someone in on work experience, there’s a big benefit to yourself and the sector as a whole. Hopefully, you’re getting someone who’s enthusiastic who may even end up working for you someday and making a real difference. However, it’s easy to forget the basics when...

Elderly lady - Advantage Accreditation

More than funding needed to change social care

Readers will be well advised to read a very interesting and provocative article in The Spectator on the need for reform in the social care system, concluding the system needs much more than just fresh cash. The article, by James Mumford, who led a review of social care for the Centre for Social Justice,...

Old and young lady - Advantage Accreditation

CQC report finds good care in mental health services

Although the media will no doubt focus on the negatives, a new CQC report on the state of care in mental health services has actually uncovered a lot of good news. A study of mental health services conducted between 2014 and 2017 has found that 68% of core services provided by the NHS are...

Is the quality of care likely to improve?

Many pessimistic about the future of care

The results of an Advantage survey for a new report on the Future of Care show that many in the care sector are pessimistic about the future of the sector and the quality of care. The survey asked respondents to rate their optimism about the future of the sector out of 10, with 10 being...

Skills for Care logo

Did you know about Skills for Care’s Leadership Programme?

Skills for Care are ramping up the publicity on their Leadership Programme, which is open to applications. Skills for Care have a raft of leadership programmes (with a discount for members) that many seem unaware of. Although it can be hard to take time out of an organisation, it’s always important to ‘sharpen the...

Old and young lady - Advantage Accreditation

SCIE makes the case for intermediate care

The Social Institute for Excellence has published a new highlights paper on how intermediate care can deliver better outcomes for people in care. The report has found that effective intermediate care reduces pressure on hospitals and on social care settings. For example, it has found that 72% of people who received intermediate care did...

Person-centred approach – training and development

Person-centred care should be at the heart of any health and social care provider’s approach to care. But how do we embed it into training and development? The person-centred approach framework released by Skills for Health, Skills for Care and Health Education England includes a section advising organisations on how to embed these approaches using...

Person-centred approaches - Advantage Accreditation

Person-centred approaches in healthcare

A new framework is being launched by Skills for Health, Skills for Care and Health Education England to put people-centred approaches at the heart of the health and social care sector. The framework builds on a long-running trend to put people and their needs at the heart of health and social care, replacing the...

Old man and carer

Choosing the perfect care home

BBC News have published an article online today advising people on ‘how to choose the perfect care home‘. We liked the article because it included a checklist from Age UK on what to ask potential residential or nursing homes before you or your family member moves in. The list is useful for providers though,...

Is DoLS set to be replaced?

This may have slipped under everyone’s radar. A report that received little attention in the news from the Law Commission has recommended scrapping the current Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards, which it describes as “in crisis”, and replacing them with a new Liberty Protection Safeguards system. Although this may seem like semantics, the new system...

Old lady

New report shows the importance of basic skills

A number of news outlets are leading today with the news that the CQC has found that 32% of nursing homes in England and Wales are failing on safety:Inspectors making unannounced visits to care homes found medicines being administered unsafely, alarm calls going unanswered and residents not getting help to eat or use the...

Mountain climbers

The biggest problem with training, and what you can do about it

We've all been on a training course of some form or another. It might be something compliance based - like health and safety - or something that really impacts on how we perform in our role. The problem, however, is that it often isn't built around the learner. The reason why is clear: training...