Social care that offers the right fit

The demand for spe­cial­ist care ser­vices that require exper­tise, high staffing lev­els and spe­cial­ist facil­i­ties is grow­ing, how­ev­er many ‘main­stream’ care providers are strug­gling to deliv­er.

Exem­plar Health Care, a provider of spe­cial­ist nurs­ing care, is tak­ing a stand to ensure that peo­ple get the right care, by the right team, the first time round.

The com­pa­ny, with its bespoke ser­vices, clin­i­cal exper­tise and high staff-res­i­dent ratios, has devel­oped a port­fo­lio of 35 com­mu­ni­ty-based care homes where peo­ple can access the spe­cial­ist care they need while remain­ing close to their loved ones.

“Find­ing the right nurs­ing care for adults liv­ing with com­plex care and health needs can be dif­fi­cult,” says Rachel Calla­dine, busi­ness devel­op­ment direc­tor at Exem­plar Health Care, which has been grow­ing steadi­ly for 20 years. “Not all ser­vices have the right facil­i­ties and exper­tise to meet people’s com­plex needs, par­tic­u­lar­ly those who dis­play behav­iours that chal­lenge, which can often lead to place­ments fail­ing.

“This caus­es sig­nif­i­cant dis­tress for indi­vid­u­als and their fam­i­ly mem­bers, as well as increas­ing the cost to the local health and social care sys­tem.”

The provider’s holis­tic approach, which has become a hall­mark of its nurs­ing homes’ high-qual­i­ty care mod­el, ensures that peo­ple receive the right care from the start and are empow­ered to live a ful­fill­ing life.

“It is about a per­son receiv­ing the right care, in the right envi­ron­ment and from the right team so they can achieve their poten­tial and live their best lives,” says Calla­dine. “It is dis­ap­point­ing that around 60% of our ser­vice users come to us after a failed place­ment with anoth­er provider, which often caus­es them and their fam­i­ly dis­tress, and their health to dete­ri­o­rate often neces­si­tat­ing longer term and more expen­sive care.”

Exem­plar Health Care, which aims to add more homes to its port­fo­lio over the next few years, is a lead­ing provider of spe­cial­ist care that is deliv­ered in nurs­ing homes with a strong com­mu­ni­ty feel.

Demand for com­plex care ser­vices is grow­ing. This is in part due to the increas­ing num­ber of chil­dren born with com­plex med­ical con­di­tions, as well as the num­ber of old­er peo­ple devel­op­ing com­plex needs lat­er in life and a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of peo­ple expe­ri­enc­ing com­plex and endur­ing men­tal health con­di­tions.

“We care for adults with a wide range of com­plex men­tal and phys­i­cal health con­di­tions. We are see­ing an increase in refer­rals for peo­ple with com­plex demen­tia and behav­iours that chal­lenge — and we expect this group will grow over com­ing years,” says Calla­dine. “Our homes have the expe­ri­ence, exper­tise and high staffing lev­els to pro­vide qual­i­ty care that sup­ports them to live an enriched life and to flour­ish.

“When some­one is referred to one of our homes, we car­ry out a per­son-cen­tred assess­ment of need. This assess­es 16 dif­fer­ent domains of care across a spec­trum of clin­i­cal, social, phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal needs, work­ing with the ser­vice user, their fam­i­ly and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als to iden­ti­fy how best their full range of needs can be sup­port­ed. Get­ting the right ‘com­mu­ni­ty fit’ for every ser­vice user is imper­a­tive.

“It is heart-break­ing to see peo­ple who have failed at one or, some­times, mul­ti­ple place­ments, often because at oth­er homes the staffing lev­els and spe­cial­ist clin­i­cal sup­port are not quite right to meet their needs.

“The cycle of failed place­ments can lead to people’s con­di­tion and pre­sen­ta­tion of behav­iours wors­en­ing because of the unsuit­able envi­ron­ment they’ve been placed in. Then the home can­not cope and serves notice, which is upset­ting and can have a long-term impact on that per­son.”

Exem­plar Health Care nurs­ing homes have a well embed­ded set of core val­ues that were designed by mem­bers of staff and ser­vice users. Reg­u­lar forums are held where ser­vice user ambas­sadors have a strong voice in how their home and the wider com­pa­ny is run.

“The social and com­mu­ni­ty aspect of the care is a strong fea­ture, with our ser­vice users being well inte­grat­ed in the local com­mu­ni­ty. Although our ser­vice users have very com­plex and high acu­ity needs, the high lev­el of care and nurs­ing staff enables them to main­tain their com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment and con­tin­ue to use local ser­vices and ameni­ties,” says Calla­dine.

Each Exem­plar Health Care home has a life skills and activ­i­ties team, as well as access to a wide range of clin­i­cal experts includ­ing behav­iour sup­port spe­cial­ists, phys­io­ther­a­pists, psy­chi­a­trists and occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists.

“Care should not be about a revolv­ing door back into more acute set­tings. We learnt recent­ly of a per­son who dis­plays behav­iours which chal­lenge that esca­lat­ed to the point of him being admit­ted to a secure men­tal health hos­pi­tal because he did not receive the right care and was not in the appro­pri­ate envi­ron­ment to meet his needs,” says Calla­dine.

“He’d had a few months of low­er cost and less spe­cial­ist care but end­ed up in a hos­pi­tal at a huge cost. Fol­low­ing this path is a false econ­o­my and, more impor­tant­ly, it can cause sig­nif­i­cant dis­tress and trau­ma to peo­ple.

“We care for some of the most com­plex and acute indi­vid­u­als, who would often be in a hos­pi­tal set­ting if not placed with us. Exem­plar Health Care enables peo­ple to stay in the com­mu­ni­ty, reduc­ing read­mis­sions to hos­pi­tal and oth­er secure facil­i­ties.”

Exem­plar Health Care’s focus on estab­lish­ing and deliv­er­ing per­son­alised, holis­tic care in a friend­ly, com­mu­ni­ty-based set­ting has paid div­i­dends with a string of acco­lades. Some 27 col­leagues have been select­ed as region­al final­ists in the 2021 Great British Care Awards, while the com­pa­ny has been short­list­ed in the Care Employ­er Award cat­e­go­ry, for its “com­mit­ment to mak­ing every day bet­ter for the peo­ple we sup­port”.

A community you can be proud to work with

Exem­plar Health Care has grown organ­i­cal­ly since it opened its first five care homes in 2001 after iden­ti­fy­ing a lack of appro­pri­ate care homes for young adults liv­ing with com­plex needs.
It now employs more than 3,500 staff across 35 homes and is recruit­ing as it looks to dou­ble in size over the next five years. All staff have com­pre­hen­sive induc­tion and in-house train­ing with options to fur­ther CPD awards. The group has digi­tised its admin­is­tra­tion to stream­line paper­work demands on staff and lib­er­ate them to devote time to car­ing for res­i­dents.

“Team­work is at the heart of what we do. This is a demand­ing and emo­tion­al­ly chal­leng­ing job but it is incred­i­bly reward­ing and we have fun in the work­place,” says Rachel Calla­dine, busi­ness devel­op­ment direc­tor. “We want our res­i­dents and our ded­i­cat­ed staff to be hap­py.”
The strong learn­ing and devel­op­ment cul­ture is sup­port­ed by a robust health and well­be­ing pro­gramme.

The roles at new and exist­ing care homes include home man­ag­er, clin­i­cal nurse man­ag­er, phys­io­ther­a­pists, occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists, unit man­agers and reg­is­tered nurs­es, health­care assis­tants, chefs, house­keep­ers and main­te­nance staff.

“Our work­force is our biggest asset, which is why we invest in them,” says Calla­dine.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it exemplarhc.com

Pro­mot­ed by Exem­plar Health Care