Providing high quality person-centred care is a priority for many home care providers. Person-centred care is based on the principle of delivering care based on the specific needs of the person, not the needs and processes of the service provider. The benefits to clients of receiving person-centred care are self-evident, and such care received in their own homes means that they retain control of their lives as much as possible.
Person-centred care is outlined as one of the fundamental standards of care required to be met by the CQC, which defines it as ‘You must have care or treatment that is tailored to you and meets your needs and preferences’. This is in addition to the 12 other standards of care set out by England’s regulator of social care services, such as ensuring safety and preserving dignity and respect.
Ensuring the successful delivery of person-centred care is the responsibility of not just the carer but their managers and everyone within the circle of care. Home care software, such as CareLineLive, helps managers and carers in providing person-centred care.
Care should be personalised
To use an analogy, everybody likes their tea in a certain way – according to a study commissioned by a milk brand in 2018 there are more than 50 shades of tea! Care is no different. Individuals have their own likes and dislikes, wants, and needs, whether that’s how they like their tea, what clothes they wear or how they like their housework done.
Some clients want to be visited by the same carer on each booking. Using CareLineLive, managers can indicate preferred carers for specific clients for easier allocation when rostering.
With the CareLineLive Carer Companion app, carers can access the latest care plan and keep up to date about a client’s changing needs. Any changes made by managers are updated in real-time on the app. In case of a change in carers, the CareLineLive Carer Companion app also details key client information such as their favourite hobbies, information about their families and key likes or dislikes so a personalised service can be given at all times.
Consistent and co-ordinated care
Using home care software, records can be kept about a client’s care to ensure that whoever is delivering care can do so with continuity and consistency.
In CareLineLive’s Carer Companion App carers can leave handover notes about a person’s care for the next visiting carer plus carers are able to access previous tasks and medication given, if needed, so they are completely informed.
CareLineLive improves communications for all involved in the ‘circle of care’. For example, having up-to-date care plans always a click away on your phone means that those clients who cannot easily communicate their needs, for example those with Dementia or with learning disabilities, have their individualised wishes catered for as carers are able to look at a situation from their perspective and help them take part in the things they enjoy.
Using home care software such as CareLineLive can not only enable an agency to deliver person-centred care but as a result can help its clients to be independent and live a fulfilled life, the way that they want to.
