Care services are guided by the core beliefs of respecting and upholding everyone’s right to access support when they need it, equity of provision, and empowering staff and residents and their families to engage in shared decision-making around care.

The team at Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd say their work is grounded in these core values – and they are eager to collaborate with more care homes seeking ways to strengthen and improve their services.

The Care Inspectorate conducts reviews of care homes and other care providers across Scotland, often leaving providers with a list “things of done wrong”, says Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd Director Lesley Sinclair.

Lesley and Consultant Sheena Williamson have explained what care home providers can do to meet the watchdog’s expectations and prepare for inspections.

Now, ahead of Scottish Care’s Care Home Conference and Exhibition, Lesley said it’s important to showcase the work of the Care Inspectorate as an opportunity for learning, rather than a ‘judgment’:

“I think it’s all about the learning. We talk about person-centred and ultimately this will help you meet the needs of the residents, which is much richer than an individual care plan.

“Quality assurance and improvement is something we learn about everyday, it’s not that there’s one narrow ‘right or wrong’, but that we could be doing things differently to a given care home to bring it to a place that meets the Care Inspectorate’s requirement.

“By reviewing and learning continuously and meeting the care sector’s needs as set out by this regulator, we’re also considering your residents’ individual needs and helping you design care around all the things you can do to help them live well while supporting staff.”

She explained that, when working with care homes, they acknowledge they “can never please the Care Inspectorate 100%” and often return to what person-centred care means for their residents.

She said Insight’s coaching and improvement services go hand-in-hand, but the systems-approach and support delivered through improvement services can help provide a practical way forward to deliver on this.

Lesley said their services are often brought in after care homes have failed an inspection, which can bring a lot of stress or tension.

She hopes that, by advocating for early engagement with teams to shift their improvement support work from reactionary to proactive, they can help foresee and introduce sustainable changes early.

Lesley explains this means the support she offers can be more collaborative, rather than being set against a backdrop of criticisms from the Care Inspectorate:

“We tend to see people leave it too long – yes, we can come in later but that ultimately can cost more and cause distress to not only staff but the residents in the care home.

“I think often people just plod on with what they’re doing, which is understandable.

“We can sometimes become mired in what we’ve always done and it can take someone else coming in to say: ‘Well what about this? If you were to put that in place, it can strengthen what you already have’.

“We genuinely can do more, especially for small organisations, working with them in advance of an inspection, than working in a reactive way – which is just stressful for everybody.

“It’s so much easier in advance of the Care Inspectorate coming in, it allows you the time to work with people.”

Consultant Sheena, who previously worked as a Senior Inspector for the Care Inspectorate, added that managers often have backgrounds as care workers or nurses and need extra support in taking on managerial and oversight responsibility.

She said working with care home managers to “realise what they don’t know” about the needs of their residents and staff, can be an important step toward the provision of excellent care.

A manager of a small care home in Angus who was previously supported by Insight Coaching & Consultancy Ltd said they continue to benefit from what they learned from Lesley years later::

“Lesley Sinclair came into my life four years ago at a point when I was struggling with my grades at the care home, the Care Inspectorate were about to put us in special measures.

“Lesley supported me during all negotiations with the Care Inspectorate. She was able to help me install new systems that have made a massive difference; in fact, we have just had our best inspection in 10 years.

“Working with Lesley is an absolute joy, she is very supportive and will always take time to talk.

“We continue to work with Lesley to this day. Her input is absolutely crucial we now also use Lesley’s company for all our face-to-face training. I can highly recommend Lesley’s services.”

A mock inspection

The team also offers mock inspections and one care home manager explained the impact this had:

“Lesley and Sheena were very professional and supportive to me during our three-day mock inspection.

“The feedback and suggestions we received were very clear, helpful and informative and have really helped me with some great ideas on how I can improve the service.”

Another client, a Registered Manager in a care home who engaged Lesley in an “inspection-ready” project, reflected on their experience over five session of review and improvement work:

“After the 5th session, we completed a mock inspection which was followed by a complete inspection report.

“I would highly recommend any organisation or service within health and social care to get involved with Lesley – invaluable knowledge.”

healthandcare.scot is pleased to be working in partnership with Insight Coaching and Consulting in Scotland.

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