We recently chatted to Janette Watkins who runs Southover Community Care ,a home care agency based in Lewes, about their experience with CareLineLive and how it has helped during COVID-19. They are a not-for-profit agency with 10 carers providing care at home to people in the surrounding area. With their clients, they often go above and beyond; during lockdown they happily replaced a client’s TV when it had packed up, knowing how important it was to them.
Tell us a little bit about why you chose CareLineLive?
We had been looking at a system that makes rota scheduling easier as we were running our rotas previously on Excel. We had problems where sometimes carers would be on holiday, the rotas were not updated correctly and then 2 carers would visit the same client.
Our agency liked the look of CareLineLive as it appeared simple to use. Julie our Sales Manager was also proactive but not pushy which helped us make our decision.
How easy was it to transition to CareLineLive?
We found it easy once we really started to use it after our initial training. We did have a CQC inspection in the middle of our onboarding which delayed things a little.
After we made a conscious effort to start using CareLineLive, it was great, and we now use the system to its full capacity. Julie from CareLineLive was really helpful as she often phoned us to see how we were getting on which was lovely.
What has been your experience of using CareLineLive?
The rostering system is fantastic as we have access to all the information we need at the press of a button, instead of having to look through multiple paper files.
It’s good when we are out and about, for example I have an iPad so I can easily look something up if I need to. To date, we have had hardly any problems. When we have problems, the support team always gets back to us very quickly.
What are the key challenges you and your carers have faced during COVID-19?
Keeping everyone safe, from the carers to our clients. Additionally trying to keep on top of all the information that we receive and that we must return to the CQC on a daily basis.
How has CareLineLive helped during COVID-19?
I am working from home so have found it easy to use CareLineLive as its cloud-based. I also think the COVID-19 information and hand washing reminders on the Carer Companion app was an excellent idea. It provides a handy reminder for our carers when they are with their clients.
I’ve also used the real-time call monitoring to help locate our carers so I can easily deliver their PPE supplies to them. This helps with social distancing and negates any unnecessary trips for our carers.
I use my daily client log for all the information I need for my daily returns to the CQC which has made my life easier. With my old spreadsheet system, this would have been a nightmare.
How does CareLineLive’s Carer Companion mobile app help your carers?
At first my carers were apprehensive about using CareLineLive.
However once they got used to it, they found it easy to check in and out of visits. They also like that the information can be updated in real-time e.g. tasks like catheter bag changes, and information is available for different carers who visit the same clients, so they are always kept up to date.
Ensuring their rota is always correct has also saved them time – carer visits are no longer doubled up, unlike our old spreadsheet system!
What do you think of the support that CareLineLive provides?
They are very quick to get back to you and our account manager Julie is always available to talk if we have a problem.
It was also good recently to have some top-up training to find out about the new features of the app that we were not using.
Would you recommend CareLineLive?
I would definitely recommend CareLineLive. Initially, I was worried about the cost as we are a not-for-profit agency. However it has been ok and has bought several benefits to our agency.
