There are countless healthcare professionals at the heart of the healthcare industry battling the frontlines every day to keep our communities safe. And with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic crisis, health and social care sectors have been stretching the workforce resulting in burnout, stress, exhaustion and fatigue.

If the epidemic has taught us anything, it is caregivers and healthcare professionals are invaluable, but this is nothing new. As a care provider, you need to thoroughly assess the value of your workforce and the significant impact they have on your care home operations, both financially and legally. Having a sound understanding of safe staffing methods and employee retention not only helps you meet different legislation criteria but also demonstrates to the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that you are a compliant provider.

Did you know that safe staffing is one of the major factors of many care providers who are rated ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ by the CQC?

We know that recruitment and retention can be challenging for care home providers. In fact, inadequate staffing is a widespread and persistent issue in the care sector. So, what can you do about it? You need to implement and follow safe staffing practices in your care home.

But what exactly is safe staffing?

Keep reading and you’ll find out.

Safe staffing is about having an adequate staff with the right values and skills to deliver quality care and support for care home residents. It also involves:

• Ensuring safe staffing levels, including the implementation of contingency plans
• Recruiting the right individuals with the proper values, skills, and experience to give safe care and support
• Conducting the necessary recruitment checks, and ensuring staff are competent and safe to perform their duties

Getting this right entails considerably more than just receiving a good CQC inspection rating; it also signifies providing individuals with safe, effective, and responsive care and support. On the other hand, if you fail to ensure safe staffing practices, it could not only affect the quality of care but also ruin the reputation of your organisation.

Wondering how?

Think about this for a moment. Your care home doesn’t have an adequate number of staff in proportion to the number of residents. This means your existing workforce would be under immense pressure to meet their job requirements. However, it can sometimes lead to patient neglect, employee fatigue or any unexpected damages.

Now let us take a look at some facts and figures.

• There are now over 15.5 million people aged 60 or over, making up 23% of the UK population.
• There are nearly 18,000 care homes across the UK. About 70 per cent of these are residential care homes, while the remaining 30 per cent are nursing homes.
• With nurse turnover rates as high as 30% a year and nearly half of UK care home nurses quitting within a year, it is clear that regular employee retention can be extremely costly to the healthcare organization.
• According to a meta-analysis conducted by MDPI, a relationship was found between the development of employee burnout and patient safety actions with a probability of superiority of 66.4%.

Do you see where we’re going with this?

Well, it all boils down to the fact that your care home should ensure to main safe and sufficient staffing to deliver the best care possible.

So how does your care home ensure safe and sufficient staffing? Let us tell you how.

Decide your staffing level 

As a care provider, it is your responsibility to determine the number of staff and range of skills you need to keep your operations running smoothly and efficiently. Introduce a systematic approach to develop the knowledge and skills of your workforce. If your employee data is held in disparate systems or paper trails, then it is time to make your move to digital platforms. Consolidate all your employee records into a single system that would provide maximum insight into your workforce. With a workforce management system like that, you can build reports and actionable insights about your people.

Plan your staff rota 

In any organisation, managing when and how your staff work is a critical factor contributing to your success. This makes planning, creating and implementing a staff rota one of the most crucial responsibilities. Plan your staff rota to ensure you have the appropriate number of eligible employees in the right place at the right time. You will want to keep the employees productive, yet a packed staff schedule can lead to employee burnout and dissatisfaction.

While planning rota for your staff, do make sure it is compliant with all the legal standards and regulations. This might include legal staffing standards, specific shift arrangements, leave availabilities, time-off, variable wage scales and more. Having rota planning and management software can help you creating and managing rotas quick and easy.

Have a contingency plan in place 

There is a myriad of factors that can have an impact on short-term staffing and the safety of your care home operations. So, it is a must to have contingency plans in place to respond to these events, and you must ensure that all responsible personnel are aware of them. When faced with a shortage of staff, overstaff your service to avoid poor service standards.

You can consider hiring a team of bank employees that can fill in any gaps in the rota. In the event of an emergency, get in touch with agency staff.  Moreover, you can also create a volunteer programme to improve the services you provide and allow more individuals to participate in new experiences and activities.

Review your staffing strategy regularly 

Make it a point to review the staffing strategy consistently in order to ensure they still cater to the demands of your service. And if deemed, you can make necessary changes to the staffing levels. Conducting a routine review of your staffing levels and service should be a routine aspect of your quality assurance processes. If you fail to review and revise your staffing levels when needed, it would adversely affect the quality of care and support.

To sum up, safe staffing is the process of reviewing your existing staffing levels and their skills to ensure that your care home is not overstaffing, understaffing or failing to meet the quality of services.

If you are looking for an innovative way to reduce inefficiencies and human errors in managing your workforce, then make the best use of technology. JMS One, a workforce management system can help your care home save time and costs so you can spend your resources on delivering high-quality care and support.

So what are you waiting for?

Do get in touch with us to schedule a free demo or answers to your questions about JMS One.