Amanda Keeler, Compliance and Quality Manager, Walfinch
You’d think I’d lie awake in the dark worrying about the responsibilities of my job. I’m in charge of compliance for Walfinch’s growing network of 30+ homecare franchisees – but I’m used to that.
Instead, my mind uses the small hours to get creative.
I’m always aiming for perfection – and for me, that means finding new ways to keep our franchisees, managers and care teams engaged and enthusiastic about care sector compliance.
Of course, they all get training from me when they start, covering all the regulations and Acts of Parliament that apply to homecare, plus how to prepare for a regulator’s inspection. However, it takes a lot more than that. We have to ensure that whatever else they are doing, franchisees, managers and carers make compliance part of their job all the time.
It helps that at Walfinch we employ what we call ‘The Mum Test’. That means always delivering the standard of care you would want for your own mum. It’s easy to remember and it helps keep safeguarding and compliance front of mind.
I aim for perfection. That means having everyone managing their own compliance to a level that would earn a ‘good’ or an ‘outstanding’ rating from the regulators.
That’s why I lie awake at night devising new and creative ways to achieve that.
Creative compliance
Delivering the same message repeatedly means people get bored and tune out. When compliance becomes a run-of-the-mill, tick-box exercise, you have a recipe for a potentially dangerous situation.
Everyone needs to be learning new aspects of compliance all the time, and exercising their minds about the issue in order to stay engaged.
Unique insights
Most recently I started getting people who have knowledge gained from experience to give us their insights. So far we have had presentations from:
- Someone with experience of supporting mental health and wellbeing;
- A coroner; and
- A workplace menopause specialist.
These presentations have worked well and we will do more.
I have not heard of anyone else in the homecare sector putting on presentations like this.
Planning for the future
Sometimes I lie awake in the dark thinking creatively about preparing everyone for changes in regulations.
We’ve been planning for the introduction of the new Liberty Protection Safeguards (LPS) for a long time, even though they have not been introduced yet.
Helping others sleep at night
Franchisees often worry about inspections, even though we do mock inspections regularly. I like calming their worries and ensuring they have everything ready.
For instance, Bunmi Ganiyu, our Walfinch franchisee in Edinburgh achieved a ‘Good’ rating in her first inspection, and said: “Amanda has built a support platform that helps you comply with all the necessary standards and if you need help you can call her, and she’ll call back even if she’s busy.” That’s what I like to hear.
My goal
After many years in the care sector, I know what I want to avoid. I have seen agencies where there was far too little compliance, where care managers would do very little to help their teams, and a care home where there was almost no attention paid to compliance at all. There was so much to put right! As soon as I had done that, I left.
Now my aim at Walfinch is to be the best in the care industry – and lying awake worrying is far less likely to achieve that than lying there thinking of creative new ideas.
