Philippa Fieldhouse, Managing Director of Richmond Villages, part of Bupa
I’m Managing Director for Richmond Villages, part of Bupa. We are an integrated retirement community with 10 sites across the UK, helping our residents live longer, healthier, happier lives. So what keeps me awake at night is – what does the future of retirement and care services look like and how will we provide the options and capacity to meet the increasing demands with our aging population?
There’s no denying that we’ve all gone digital. Our grandparents are on Facebook, video calls allow us to feel close to our loved ones and everything is turning to smart technology – phones, TVs and even our kettles. So what does this mean in retirement living?
We’re on a mission to be at the forefront of digital technology, and we’re adopting technological solutions large and small across our retirement villages.
One example is in dementia care. We were among the first to adopt a new model of dementia care, encouraging people to continue to live as independently as they can for as long as possible in the Dutch-style ‘households’. At our Richmond Villages Willaston site, residents live in communities of six supported by ‘homemakers’, who help them continue doing daily chores and hobbies they enjoy, and in doing so, enabling them to maintain their independence whilst also being there as discreet support as needed.
It’s our use of technology that also sets Willaston apart. At night, residents are acoustically monitored and staff are alerted if there are unexpected noises or movement. This means our people can act quickly if needed, while otherwise enabling residents to get an undisturbed night’s sleep, maintaining their independence and quality of life.
It’s an exciting time to look at how we provide dementia care, and our learnings from this new concept have the power to shape Bupa’s 120+ care homes and nine other retirement villages. Not to mention how we provide care for other conditions, such as Parkinson’s and Huntingdon’s.
Technology is changing how we provide care at every level. Traditionally, our care staff have always filled out paper notes throughout their shifts, which can be time consuming and inefficient. So we’ve introduced digital care records accessible on handheld devices to revolutionise this process, allowing every interaction with residents to be recorded in real time, and stored for easy reference in a central database.
Like other providers, we have been through a challenging time in the care and retirement living sector, and our people have worked tirelessly through it. It’s important to us that we acknowledge this and ensure we’re doing everything we can to support our people and give them time for what they love – providing real, person-centred, high quality care.
We have also embraced digital technology to build engagement among our teams. Simple things like using polling features on virtual calls and events to get in the moment feedback has been a gamechanger. But we’ve also upweighted the importance of day to day, face to face engagement. We invested in regional engagement champions, celebrating the role they play in motivating and communicating with our people working hard in our villages and care homes every day.
Now we’re looking at world-class engagement scores among our people, which demonstrate they feel our care homes and retirement villages are great places to work, environments in which they feel welcome and they have opportunities to grow their careers. We have a breadth of apprenticeships, nursing qualifications and opportunities for progression and promotion.
Above all, I believe that our people and our retirement villages can transform people’s lives, helping them enjoy their later years and live full and happy lives where their independence is promoted and when care is needed it is with dignity and kindness. Our community style of care works together with the NHS and social care to give individuals other options and families the reassurance that their loved ones are in safe hands.
With an aging population in the UK, it’s important that we in retirement and social care also embrace innovation and technology to be fit for the future. So I believe our investment in digital solutions is a move in the right direction. And that definitely helps me sleep well at night.
