We caught up with Jinienei Welham, Managing Director of We Simply Care, a domiciliary home care agency based in Suffolk. She talked to us about how CareLineLive have benefitted her team since onboarding our home care management system last year.
Tell us a little bit about We Simply Care?
We Simply Care has been established for 2 years; we are a CQC registered domiciliary home care agency and have a contract with Suffolk County Council.
Our services range from personal care and domestic assistance to companionship. Currently we have 20 Care Specialists, our team are picked for their personal attributes such as kindness and patience and are trained in many aspects of health and social care. Those who are specialists in certain areas, such as dementia, share their knowledge with other team members so that our service is consistently improved as our knowledge grows. I am a qualified trainer, assessor and IQA (Internal Quality Assurance) in management, health, and social care so training is my passion.
What do you enjoy about running a home care agency?
I enjoy knowing that we are making a difference to people’s lives. We try our upmost to ensure people can carry on living in their own homes. Whether the individual requires assistance with cooking, cleaning, personal care, medication or simply wanting a chat or going out for the day.
Our main aim is to promote independence and if possible, re-enable an individual. There is not a better feeling in the world than when we have re-enabled a customer and the holistic health and well-being of the customer is improved.
Although this role can be difficult at times, especially when we are caring for customers at the end of their lives. Knowing that they are treated with dignity and respect, kindness and compassion makes the situation better. During the pandemic, many vulnerable people are very lonely and feeling very isolated, which has been hard.
I enjoy ensuring the customer has the correct Care Specialist to suit their personalities, preferences, needs and wishes.
What system did you use before CareLineLive? What were your main challenges?
We used HR software for our rota system before CareLineLive where we had to print or email the rota over to our Care Specialists. In home care, rota changes occur on a daily basis due to hospital visits or family visiting. With our previous system, we were not able to make quick changes to rotas. Plus once changes were made, we had to call the Care Specialist to inform them of the changes. This was extremely time consuming.
What were your reasons for choosing CareLineLive?
We chose CareLineLive after lots of research into different companies. CareLineLive appeared to be the most attractive on the market, with the features we needed. The sales advice and support team are always very responsive and very efficient.
How easy was it to onboard CareLineLive/transition from your previous system to using CareLineLive?
We decided to onboard during the pandemic and as such we did not have much time to complete the onboarding. However, even though we have yet to complete the training CareLineLive is so easy to use we were able to make use of the system straightaway. If at any point we got stuck, a quick 2-minute call with the support team would solve the issue.
Since using CareLineLive, what are the main areas of your business that have benefitted and how?
The rostering has certainly improved our business. Our rota on CareLineLive is updated in real-time on our Care Specialists’ phones in a matter of seconds. We are able to create EMARs, so any medication changes are recorded and available on the CareLineLive Carer Companion app at point of care in a matter of minutes.
With the CareLineLive Carer Companion app our Care Specialists can leave notes and upload pictures of any injuries or sores immediately at service users’ homes. The office team can see these instantly and respond accordingly.
How do your carers use the Carer Companion mobile app to help deliver person-centred care?
Our Care Specialists can post notes of any visit time request on every service user profile. We are also able to include service user personal preferences and set tasks on the Carer Companion app to support the Care Specialist to deliver person centred care.
How does CareLineLive facilitate compliance and reporting?
We are able to check reports on every aspect of care delivered including the exact care hours provided. It will certainly help with CQC PIRs (Provider Information Returns) as we will be able to quickly see how many care hours we have completed.
What do you think of the support that CareLineLive provides?
The support team are fantastic – we can access support in a matter of minutes.
Would you recommend CareLineLive to other home care agencies?
Definitely, I would 100% recommend CareLineLive to other home care agencies, once fully onboarded it takes away many stresses. We have promoted CareLineLive to other home care agencies on social media as we think this system is the best out there.
