Pilot scheme launched for care home managers in Plymouth

A leadership programme to make sure the most vulnerable people receive high-quality care has been launched in Plymouth.

The scheme will be piloted at 15 care homes before being rolled out across Plymouth.

The scheme is aimed at care home managers and will help to make sure high-quality care is provided from the top down.

Councillor Sue McDonald, Cabinet member for Public Health and Adult Social Care, said: “Good social care has the potential to transform people’s lives. It can help them to realise independence, exercise meaningful choice and control over the care and support they receive, and live with dignity and opportunity.

“High-quality leadership needs to run through every aspect of the social care workforce to make sure we have high-quality care.”

The programme will give individuals and organisations a benchmark against which to measure their leadership capability.

It will also be used to create targeted development plans.

Councillor McDonald added: “Social care is changing all the time. We are really proud of how far we have come, but there are many new initiatives which care home managers need to stay on top of. We are offering support through this programme to make sure that their staff are skilled, have a sense of pride and motivation and are trained to the meet the needs of the clients.

“Anyone who has a family member in a care home will have a flavour of the day-to-day demands, but this pilot will help with the behind-the-scenes work that goes on to ensure the very best practice is part of life of care homes in Plymouth.

“The response from the care industry has been really encouraging. We need to provide the tools for people who run care homes to become truly excellent and forward thinking. The programme aims to give managers the skill and training to step away from the day-to day of their own extremely busy workload to lead and manage their homes as effectively as possible.

“As organisations that commission services for adult social care, this partnership has a role to play in reassuring clients and their families that our city’s care homes are the best they can be.”

Steve Waite, Chief Executive of Plymouth Community Healthcare CIC said: “As a provider of clinical services, staff from Plymouth Community Healthcare work very closely with care homes across the city. We welcome this opportunity to support the sharing of excellent practice and greater awareness of how managers and clinical leaders can work together to ensure that some of our most vulnerable people receive a consistently high quality of care.”