The Edith Ellen Foundation-Kindness in Care –Solutions for the UK Care Crisis

At the Edith Ellen Foundation our aim is to roll out across the UK a standardised quality of care for everyone. One which always brings a natural understanding and kindness that we would wish for our love ones and indeed for ourselves.

From my 50 years of personal and professional experiences with care, The Edith Ellen Foundation’s 2015-2016 collaborative work within a care home, and our daily support on the front line of care for people and their families, our Foundation’s Team sees and understands the big picture on care problems that neither the NHS or Care Services are caring for people, particularly for those living with Dementia.

It has found that the Care Acts, Regulations and Guidelines, Care Industry and care Providers are merely treating the symptoms, not the cause of the care problems.

Despite having gathered extensive knowledge over many years, care is not addressing unsafe care and the poor and inconsistent standards, and still all our frail and vulnerable people, and their families, are not perceived as valued and wanted in all care services. Echoing the findings from “An Evidence Based Investigation into Care that People living with Dementia Receive Following Acute Hospital Admission” – Care systems appear to believe the fault lies with the person, rather than the culture. https://www.storiesofdementia.com/2018/04/research-report.html

We simply need better care.

From our experiences it appears here is no satisfactory definition of what constitutes "reasonable" care. In care goals, values, training and behavioural relationships between management and staff.

That is why the Foundation has created its Kindness Audit, Kindness Charter and unique Best Practice Blueprint for improving and sustainable care – for residents, families, care managers and staff, associated integrated care professionals, organisations and people in their local communities. Starting in Care Homes, by bringing everyone together in our Kindness in care solutions it will improve the consistency and enduring outcomes in the quality of life for all people in Care, especially those living with Dementia.

The Foundation believes that the only way to build a great care service with great success and scale is to have a great skilled, confident and communicating team, and our Kindness in Care Best Practices coaches, encourages and builds that great connected team of care staff, managers and directors.

I am sure that, like the Foundation, people are equally frustrated with hearing about Health and Social Care financial constrains; the bad press and abysmal care reputations; and money being received in care is not used efficiently. Care providers themselves are unhappy their investment in training is not providing sustainable improvements in their system, and return on their investments. Families still have to interject, support and enhance basic nursing and care, and care staff’s skills, in order to keep their loved ones alive.

Unlike the CQC; other Skills and on-line E-learning programmes who are putting accreditation and training systems in place without changing the working environment, the Foundation’s Kindness in Care process influences and supports a kinder working environment for those who work in care homes, a kinder individual experience for those being cared for, and as a mechanism for designing care services around people.

The new frameworks and programs we advocate will ensure that the majority of people in care and those living with dementia attain a reasonable quality of life, whether they live in their own homes or in institutions. We are still a long way from that goal. We need to attain it before we have to maintain it!

The challenges and circumstances under which hundreds of thousands of people who live with dementia struggle every day precludes them from living well and enjoying a reasonable quality of life. These deplorable conditions include being misunderstood, stigmatized, vilified, neglected and abused, as well as being physically confined and chemically restrained, among other indignities.

At the Foundation it make even more determined to be a creator of change, especially when we see new and approved ideas in medicine, science and therapies which are making great changes in a small way, but their huge potential is lost because the NHS and care providers are totally unaware of their beneficial existence.

We do not believe that putting additional funds into any NHS and Social Service without considering a robust and practical mechanism for changing and improving those services is a good return on investments. The Foundation uses our Kindness in Care to listen and identifying how we can help to influence the individual service gaps gap between what we all know from established research, and how management and staff use that knowledge in a practical way to improve their delivery of care.  

Our Best Practice Culture of Kindness is care is achieved through improving shared communications, and a dedicated and robust motivated Team which values themselves and the services they provide to their clients and their families.  Using our connected Partnerships, and all our reflective coaching processes, we support care staff to achieve their Mission Statements and Goals.

It focuses on encouraging staff to move care away from the repetitive processes currently in place which impede a more caring and trusted approach to the delivery, by introducing them to new skills which links care to New Initiatives in Medicine, Science and Therapies, and by considering Staff as the care services most valuable assets.  

Seeking engagement with the Local Communities, and their support, we look to provide a more consistent caring approach and to make a positive difference to people coping with their surroundings and life in care settings.

The Foundation is ready to help with a transgression from standards which are not consistent to one that is enduring and will lead the rest of the world. It has the capability to move care systems on to one consistent standard, where everyone benefits in our Kindness in Care solutions and promotes:

• ·     Care homes which always welcome people in care and their families, and people are seen, understood, valued and encouraged to continue with their lives and contacts with family, friends and their local community, even when living with Dementia, as they matter most. Where, consistent Kindness in Care is for everyone who needs it, not just some.
• ·     Care Home Staff who are that vital provision of a dynamic creative Nursing and Care Team, delivering safe reliable and homely care practices, supported, respected and appreciated for the work which they do.
• ·     Our Care Providers, and their Groups, reaping the benefits from cost savings across their operations and the ultimate consistency that attracts recognition and staff loyalty, which demands a premium as its Great Place to Work and Live.
• ·     Truly Integrated Care services achieving robust growth, improving reputable and sustainable Outcomes; promoting reductions in pressure on NHS and Social Care Services and increased cost savings in all service Resources. As Kindness in Care Best Practices is an indication of Value for Money and for increased Financial Incomes for care services in a struggling care industry.

From our experiences and our connected multi-disciplinary professional partnerships within Medicine, Care, and Therapies, we have crafted a coaching model that will achieve Kindness in Care for all and will showcase the benefits of:

• ? Reductions in staff sickness, recruitment and operating costs when providing care services
• ? Consistency in improving pain management and reductions in the burden of medical costs and unnecessary admissions to hospital
• ?  Fully integrated nutrition and hydration model as prevention rather than reaction to improving the well-being of people in care
• ? Establishing behavioural leadership and people management skills which share mutual respect and understanding of defined roles and supportive communicative relationship
• ? Holistic and Specialist therapies including counselling for management staff , residents and families to support the challenges every one faces
• ? A more care-based approach to seeing, understanding & meeting people’s true needs
• ? Inspiring care staff to take their own lead to achieving a sense of pride and value in their outstanding delivery of care
• ? Creating a relaxed and homely environment where people live and work in harmony

Within this new multi-disciplinary collaboration care homes have the ideal opportunity to work alongside new cutting edge and state of the art equipment, and resourceful proven science. From the robust, methodical and practical base processes within the Best Practice Principles of Kindness in care, they will provide outcomes of improving quality assurance.

Thus providing the Blueprint of a unified empowered and dedicated Care Culture of Excellence where the professionally observant focused innovative and motivated Carer truly sees and understands people and supports each individual with a kindly consideration of the whole person, physically, psychologically, socially and spiritually.

The Edith Ellen Kindness in Care Carers-

Leading the UK and the Rest of the World

The Edith Ellen Foundation believes that the provision of outstanding care should be the objective of every provider; the receipt of outstanding care should be the right of every individual who needs it.

Kate Blake copyright May 2018