Many of our team members have had first-hand experience working on the frontline, we’ve walked in your shoes, faced the challenges you face, and celebrated the victories of providing good care. This wealth of experience has shaped the Nourish Care platform into what it is today and gives us unparalleled insight into the sector and allows us to deliver a digital care records platform that truly makes a difference.
The care experience in the Nourish team ranges from carers and activity coordinators to registered nurses and registered managers. The importance of having care experience is essential throughout our team and has shaped our team with the introduction of roles such as Clinical Lead and Safety Officer. We also have team members with nursing and care experience including Quality Assurance. In addition, our Customer Success teams truly put the impact and outcomes for people supported by care at the forefront of everything we do.
Nourish founder and CEO, Nuno Almeida spent time working in care services before the idea of Nourish had been formed. He saw care teams struggling to find time to fit their handwritten notes into their already tremendously busy day and how sometimes issues that needed to be reported slipped the net because there was no opportunity to record those concerns in the moment. He saw how many notes needed to be written to record every care interaction and to prepare for the always-looming CQC inspection.
Nourish began with the mission to give those receiving care a voice and input on the care they receive and to give the team supporting them time to deliver truly person-centred care.
“I volunteered with a care home and I was just a Portuguese chap that had a good enough English, able to come on in and help us with baking competitions on a Wednesday for example. When I started spending time in care homes, it became very obvious that care workers were writing a hell of a lot of notes. It is clear that carers genuinely have caring as a vocation but aren’t always confident writing notes and this can really remove motivation or joy out of the job they do. That’s where the idea of Nourish came from.” Nuno Almeida, Nourish founder and CEO.
There are things you learn while working in care that can only come from that environment. From small details like how much it costs to use agency carers and how the shifts run, to more significant issues such as statistics around falls and how knowing essential information about a person receiving care immediately can change how a person experiences care. The Nourish team started out their careers in the sector in a variety of different care services and job roles which means as a team we have great coverage of the sector. We can and regularly use our experiences to enhance our abilities at Nourish.
“I have only ever worked in Care and cannot imagine working in another field. I worked as both a care coordinator and a registered manager. Both job roles gave me an insight into the pain points that care providers experience in their day to day and how digital platforms can support you in providing person-centred, safe, quality care. I draw upon my experience providing care everyday when supporting my users as a Customer Success Manager, whether that’s training them on how to fully utilise the rostering and scheduling or supporting managers to run reports from the system in line with their compliance. If you have worked in care you will know the feeling of joy you get at the end of the day knowing you have made a difference in someone’s life, I still get that feeling now knowing I am helping my customers provide an impactful, safe and person-centred service.” – Jessica Atkinson, 10 years’ experience in care, Customer Success Manager at Nourish.
We know the importance of the little things. We know the difference between feeding someone lunch and assisting someone to eat their lunch. We know the difference between giving someone a choice regarding the care they receive and assigning care based on an assumption. We know the importance of personalising care notes over the same text being copy and pasted. We know because we have experienced it first-hand.
“Each time I deliver a Nourish training session, people will want to know how a certain feature relates to their sector specifically. By being able to personally draw on a large number of previous experiences across a multitude of care and support sectors, this helps the people being trained to use Nourish more effectively as I ‘get’ what they are needing. This creates a mutual trust pretty quickly and those being trained know that they will get what they need to put Nourish into action in their services.” Jason Hengler, 29 years experience in care, Trainer and Project Manager at Nourish.
Working in the health and social care sector is a skill that regularly goes underappreciated. The narrative surrounding the sector is often negative and the selfless hard work that goes on largely goes ignored. Many of our team have worked in care and know that it is so much more than its reputation. Health and social care is a rewarding career with a clear career path that relies on emotional intelligence, the ability to build relationships and spot signs of change. Our experience in care has given us the ability to communicate effectively with and about the people you support and first-hand experience in the feeling that comes with delivering great person-centred care.
Nourish exists to ensure that care teams are given the opportunity to provide the best care they can by reducing administrative burdens, enhancing communication across the whole team and giving carers back time to spend on person-centred care.
“As a Community Team Manager previously, my journey has been a blend of compassion and adaptation to the digital age. Transferable skills and experiences have enabled me to have a deep understanding and empathy to the needs of my customers and this has ensured that I am able to suit their needs as a Customer Success Manager in a more effective and speedy manner. Working for Nourish has allowed me to tap into my experience within the home care environment. As I have experience as a care coordinator, a carer and a manager, I am able to adapt and tailor my training sessions and support to ensure that the content is relevant for the individual.” Katie Loader, 5 years’ experience in care, Key Customer Success Manager at Nourish.
Because so many of us have worked in care, we know that each service is truly unique in its approach and working ways and that is why Nourish is unique and a leader in the digital social care sector. Nourish is customisable and can be tailored to your care service’s needs entirely to ensure your care service retains what is unique about it.
“Having been involved in a family run care home from a young age gave me a respect and understanding for the sector like no other. Knowing the pressures, the pain points and the sheer variation of the day to day really helps when thinking ‘is this new feature in the platform going to work in practice‘. The team will often hear me repeating the same thing ‘benefit vs burden’ and that comes from understanding the sector. Here at Nourish, we don’t just create a product, we genuinely aim to improve the lives of the manager, the carer and most of all the person receiving support.” Dan Hollingworth, 10 years experience in care, Product Owner at Nourish.
“My experience of working in care homes helps me to understand the daily struggles carers face; that everything is documented correctly, that everyone has had their care delivered properly, that medication has been administered at the correct times, that tasks have been completed, all within a particular timescale for multiple clients with different needs. I try to use that experience every day to make sure we deliver a quality product to alleviate the stresses that come with being a carer so they can offer great support for their clients.” Curtis Cridland, 5 years experience in care, Senior Quality Assurance Engineer at Nourish.
Find out more about how Nourish can enhance the care you provide by booking a personalised demo with our team.
We spoke to Stephanie at Haddon House, Glenholme Care about their integration with Camascope (formerly known as VCare).
Glenholme Care Group support many different care types from young people and adults with learning disabilities to mental health to senior care. They have 17 services located in the South East of England and have been a Nourish user since early 2021. Haddon House, one of the services within Glenholme Care Group is a specialist residential care service that supports people with learning disabilities, including those with autism, physical disabilities and complex needs.
Nourish launched their eMAR integration with Camascope in summer 2022 and Glenholme Care Group switched on the integration with Camascope in June 2022.
The Nourish integration with Camascope removes the need for double entry for medication by sharing information between the platforms, surfacing key medication information alongside daily care records to drive better care outcomes. By integrating the two systems, all medication administered will appear on the daily timeline and within the Care Plan, what’s more the integration provides first response teams with contextual medication information readily available via the Nourish Emergency Information Pack.
Haddon House saved time on recording entries of the medication administered for the people they support. They also found that after switching on the integration that the accuracy of their care notes has increased as the care team only needed to access one platform.
“The integration has helped as we are able to monitor medication administration more efficiently, from a administration point of view, using one system, rather than having to switch between the two.” Stephanie Wagstaff, Haddon House
Having all this information visible in the Nourish app ensures that all medication notes are visible to all staff members on shift. The Seamless Handover feature in Nourish also means important information from previous shifts can also keep up to date with essential information. With access to clear records that show the medication administered and at what time means care teams have a smooth and thorough handover with no information being missed.
“Medication being administered is more accurate and person centred within the daily interactions, rather than staff just recording ‘medication administered’.” Stephanie Wagstaff, Haddon House
Haddon House found the main benefit of using the Nourish and Camascope integration to be the more accurate care records. The more accurate care records gives a deeper understanding of the people supported by Haddon House and the events that surround medication administration. All of this new information enables Haddon House to better evidence the medication administered in their care service.
Though the integration itself requires some technological knowledge, setting up the integration and getting going with it was fairly easy for the Haddon House team. Nourish Support are available 24/7 and are always on hand to assist with queries regarding the Nourish platform.
The government set digital deadline requires at least 80% of care services to be using a digital care planning system by March 2024. But what benefits can using a digital care planning platform truly bring to your care service?
With a digital care planning platform, your paper-based care plans will be transformed. Care notes can be completed on the go allowing for more detailed and accurate records. On the go recording means information doesn’t get missed or forgotten and care teams don’t have to spend hours writing down their notes when they get a chance. The notes recorded digitally or via the speech to text function will be easier to read for all the care team, saving time on figuring out a member of staff’s handwriting.
With more accurate notes, comes more accurate care. Where care teams are able to record notes immediately after providing care, the care they delivered and any changes no matter how small in a person are fresh in their mind. This information will be recorded, and senior carers are able to pick it up and act upon it, ensuring the people you support are receiving the most appropriate care suitable for them. Gaps in records can be quickly identified and highlighted and notes are accessed quickly and easily within the online platform. Trends with regards to MUST, Weight loss, Food and Fluid management are more easily identifiable and acted upon.
As care notes can be logged on the go, your care teams will have more time to dedicate to delivering person-centred care. With all the necessary information about the people you support on the devices from care plans, care notes, handover notes, daily tasks, alerts and more, your care teams will have all the information they need, literally in the palms of their hands. Time will no longer be wasted looking for a file and reading through all the handwritten notes.
By adopting Nourish’s digital care planning platform, carers in Leicestershire County Care Ltd (LCCL) home Harvey House, save an average of an hour a week while care team leaders save at least two hours per week. In another LCCL home Whittingham House the team saves approximately 20 minutes per carer per week. With 10 carers on the floor, this works out at 200 minutes per week – just over 3 hours of time saved that can be reallocated back to the people they support.
This saving means that carers have more time to deliver quality person-centred care and time for activities and outings that are essential to the wellbeing of residents, all resulting in improving the health of the people they support.
Becoming ecologically friendly is a goal many care services and businesses across all sectors have set for themselves. The UK government has pledged to be net zero by 2050 while the NHS is working towards being net zero by 2040 with 80% of the reductions happening by 2028.
Using a digital care planning platform will help to reduce the amount of paper you use in your care service. 65% of care services using Nourish reported that they saved up 100 sheets of paper every single week just by using Nourish. Similarly, 95% of our care service managers reported that they save up £2,000 on stationery alone every year by using Nourish. We encourage more remote demonstrations and training of our platform to reduce our carbon footprint and either allow you to purchase your own devices or can provide sustainable devices so your care service can take the steps towards being greener.
Using Nourish gives you, your home managers and senior management team a bird’s eye view of every home in your remit. From head office, directors can observe trends across the whole group, while home managers are able to identify trends within residents in their home as well as trends with staff interactions, building team morale and delivering praise or training where required.
When LCCL were using paper before they went digital, if the senior management team wanted to see the care delivered and the health of the residents supported by LCCL, they would have to go each location and read the handwritten notes. An extremely time-consuming task where it is also hard to spot trends.
The ability to see an overview of every service within your care group gives a more consistent approach to care. You are able to see all the alerts and warnings that have been raised in each care service allowing you to analyse how long warnings have been open and the types of warnings being raised. This will help you identify any problems and put improvement measures in place. This ensures that all your services are working to the standards set by you and you are able to see where one service may need extra support and which home would be best to take direction from.
“At Harvey House, I can oversee all residents and staff on a daily basis to ensure all needed interactions have been met. Reports make gathering information such as incidents/accidents, ABC charts easier to manage and audit in a weekly basis, paperwork cannot get lost as everything is all in one place. I can complete these audits at home or at work.” – Lisa Pegg, Harvey House Manager, LCCL
Fully utilising the features and tools that come with a digital care planning platform can have a positive effect on your CQC ratings. Nourish is streamlined in a way that allows care teams to deliver person-centred care to all residents. Because the system is intuitive and easy to use, teams are able to spend more meaningful time with the people they support due to the time saved.
The ability to give evidence to various stakeholders quickly and efficiently is also one great benefit of using Nourish. With reports pulled instantly at the click of a button, the key information is available in an easy to read dashboard. Care services are able to give temporary secure access to the Nourish system to CQC inspectors and Local Authority Compliance inspectors if they wish to view specific care plans. In the current climate of where remote inspections are taking place more frequently, this will save an immense amount of time.
“Using Nourish has definitely had a positive impact on our CQC ratings, particularly due to the record keeping features meaning detailed care notes are recorded in the moment.” – Stuart Vive-Kananda, Leicestershire County Care LTD, Owner
Christmas 2022 is fast approaching and appears to be the first Christmas since 2019/20 without national lockdown restrictions affecting the way we celebrate Christmas, hooray! So, with a somewhat normal Christmas ahead, what activities can we host that are fun and festive for everyone regardless of age and ability!
Christmas is a great time for creating festive crafts. There are many simple and meaningful crafts you can make with the people you support to get in the festive spirit.
Wreaths – create a Christmas wreath with the people you support to hang on the doors of the people you support’s rooms. There are many options depending on capabilities and your risk assessments from coloured wreath to fresh wire wreaths.
Card making – decorate Christmas cards with the people you support to send to their families or for a card swap within your service. The cards can be as simple as a Christmas photo taken of each person with a message on the back.
Centrepieces – if you’re planning on having a Christmas meal with the people you support, decorate centrepieces for the tables. These can be as intricate as decorated logs or snowy mason jars with LED candles in.
Food is a huge and important aspect of Christmas for many people and activities centred around fluid and nutrition can be beneficial to those living in care.
Treat tasting – try all the Christmas goodies from mince pies to fruit cake, to sherry and eggnog. Did anyone have a sweet table just for the Christmas period and if so, what sweets did they have?
Cheese & wine (or wine alternative) evening – throw a special event for the people you support with cheese and wine (or a non-alcoholic alternative) and, if appropriate, invite their families to join the festivities. You could even hold a raffle and ask local businesses to donate prizes.
Baked goods decorating – there are many different baked goods available at Christmas time at varying levels of difficulty. Gingerbread houses are more difficult than they look while covering cookies and cakes with icing and sugared decorations are a little easier.
Reminiscence – Using reminiscence packs or information from the internet, discuss the Christmas traditions the people you support engaged in with their families. Are there any you could implement into your care service?
Movie showing & snacks – make Christmas Eve special with a showing of a Christmas film with hot chocolate and snacks.
Choir singing – spread the Christmas cheer by having a sing along. Instead of printing out songbooks, why not utilise YouTube and put the lyrics on a tv screen for everyone to see.
Check out our December activity planner for more ideas on what to do throughout the festive period. We’d love to see any photos of the activities you participate in, please send them to caring@nourishcare.co.uk or tag @NourishCare on social media.
Thank you to Future Care Group, who published the following blog on their website after rolling out Nourish in their 18 nursing homes. We love hearing how Nourish is helping and improving care services across the country!
Thank you to Warrington Community Living for sharing the following article on their website. We love hearing how Nourish‘s digital platform is helping and improving care services across the country!
Thank you to Avante Care & Support for sharing the following article on their website. We love hearing how Nourish is helping and improving care services across the country!
Bridge Haven care home has introduced Nourish, an app-based care management platform that will enable Avante Care & Support to remove paper care plans entirely.
Other benefits include creating consistent reporting across the home, less data input duplication, and quicker access to historical resident data.
Bridge Haven is a popular care home located in the heart of the picturesque village of Bridge; it’s a vibrant care home community with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Residents enjoy activities, go on outings, and have plenty of opportunities to socialise with other residents and staff.
At the heart of Bridge Haven’s care delivery ethos is the Eden Alternative approach. By following this framework, staff can ensure the overall well-being and excellent care delivery for all residents. Staff encourage social interaction and work towards eradicating loneliness and boredom.
Anita Easton, Acting Home Manager, said, ‘We are delighted to be working with Nourish electronic care planning system. We can now input information at the point of contact, allowing for a more in-depth and person-centred assessment of our residents’ personal and practical care needs and, most importantly, more quality time to spend with the residents.’
Bridge Haven care home has a wealth of specialised resources to support individuals living with dementia. The introduction of Nourish will allow more community engagement and support more daily activities for our residents, ensuring that every resident has a vibrant and fulfilling life.
Thank you to Peverel Court Care for sharing the following article on their website. We love hearing how Nourish integrations such as GP Connect are benefitting our clients.
For Peverel Court Care, any opportunity to help advance the alignment between health and social care is one not to be missed. So when our digital care management software provider Nourish approached us asking if we would beta test their new GP Connect integration, we were delighted to help.
Merryfield House, our nursing care home in Witney, Oxfordshire, was selected as the ideal place to beta test the new solution. By undertaking the pilot programme, Merryfield became the first care home in the country to access GP Connect via the Nourish platform.
Following a successful trial at Bartlett’s, we had rolled out Nourish to our homes as our chosen digital care plan solution in late 2020. More information about Nourish and the benefits we’ve seen can be found in our article on the digital care plan roll out.
GP Connect is a service that allows GP practices and authorised clinical staff to share and view GP practice clinical information and data between IT systems, quickly and efficiently. The service makes patient medical information available to clinicians when and where they need it leading to improvements in the care they’re able to provide.
“The introduction of GP Connect is a huge step towards delivering interoperability and establishing a connected care environment within health and social care. Nourish customers will be able to review relevant and timely medical notes for people they support, leading to better continuity of care, and resulting in safer, improved outcomes. I look forward to seeing the positive impact this delivers for care teams and those they support.”
Nuno Almeida, Founder and CEO of Nourish Care
With the support of our digital partner Nourish, we now have access to the GP records and medical notes for our residents, facilitating more informed decision making. We will have access to clinical history, medications, allergies, history of immunisations and more. This valuable information will enhance the work we do and surface the right information at the right time.
As the first to test this extension within Nourish, we will be shaping the way care environments interact with GP services and taking a significant step towards a joined-up care environment. We look forward to seeing how our care teams engage with GP Connect and the impact it will have on care practice.
As a business, we are always looking for ways to put our residents first, to provide them with the best possible service, and to make a positive contribution to the community. We believe that beta testing the GP Connect extension in Nourish aligns with all of those values.
“By using GP Connect we now have a better understanding of our resident’s needs. Accessing the GP record helps us to understand the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ around an individual’s needs. If there are concerns regarding medication, we can review the record and make more informed decisions. GP Connect is particularly helpful when admitting a new resident, by having this information at hand we can provide the best possible care from the start. Before GP Connect we would wait for an email or phone call from the GP. Now we can access the relevant information instantly, which is great!”
Kefas Jeshua, Peverel Court
“By switching on the GP Connect extension in Nourish we have key clinical information at our fingertips, helping us to minimise adverse events, providing better support. This information really helps!”
Francisca Torres, Peverel Court
It’s not just our team that are seeing the benefits of the pilot GP Connect programme:
“Peverel Court was the first to participate in Beta testing for the GP Connect extension. Preet, Kefas and the team were very engaged with the trial and were extremely committed and helpful. A driver for enabling GP Connect was to support new residents coming to the home, to access all their key information beforehand so the team could make the resident feel as comfortable as possible. It was great to see Peverel Court testing the latest system and striving for continuous improvement within their service.”
Elise Featley – Product Marketing Manager at Nourish Care
Thank you to Avante Care & Support for sharing the following article on their website. We love hearing how Nourish is helping and improving care services across the country!
Pilgrims View residential care home has introduced Nourish, an app-based care management platform that will enable Avante Care & Support to remove paper care plans entirely.
Electronic care planning brings many benefits, including working more efficiently when recording residents’ information and freeing up more time to focus on our residents. Other benefits include creating consistent reporting across the home, less data input duplication, and quicker access to historical resident data. Pilgrims View is a vibrant care home community with a warm and welcoming atmosphere. Residents enjoy activities, go on outings, and have plenty of opportunities to socialise with other residents and staff.
At the heart of Pilgrims View’s care delivery ethos is the Eden Alternative approach. In following this framework, we can ensure the overall well-being and excellent care delivery for all our residents. Staff encourage social interaction and work towards eradicating loneliness and boredom. We believe this sets Avante apart from other more process-led care providers.
Jennifer Rafemoyo, Home Manager, said, ‘We have all been so excited for this day to come and the transfer over to the Nourish electronic care planning system. We can now input information at the point of contact, allowing for a more in-depth and “person-centred” assessment of our residents’ personal and practical care needs. In addition, Nourish uses cutting-edge technology and allows us to identify patterns of behaviour and well-being indicators that have otherwise not been identified. We are very much looking forward to working with Nourish and spending more time with our residents’.
Pilgrims View care home has a wealth of specialised resources to support individuals living with dementia. The introduction of Nourish will allow more community engagement and support more daily activities for our residents, ensuring that every resident has a vibrant and fulfilling life.
Ensuring we stay properly hydrated and eat a balanced diet every day is an essential but sometimes an arduous task. Adults are recommended to drink approximately 1500ml of liquid every single day and eat a minimum of 5 fruits and vegetables as well as food from every food group. How you can ensure these needs are met are explained below.
A shrinking appetite is another side effect of natural ageing and difficulties with tastes and textures are common for those with learning disabilities. But there are many ways to encourage and improve food intake through activities and switching up the way food is presented. Maintaining a healthy weight is essential for keeping a healthy immune system, decreasing the risk of being deficient in nutrients and the chance of broken bones in an accident. For some, maintaining a healthy weight may be a struggle so, with the appropriate advice, fortifying food with cream, milk powder or butter may help. For others, a modified diet is essential to prevent episodes of choking. All food and drink can follow the seven levels of the IDDSI scale. When food is modified to fit the IDDSI scale, it loses its form and looks less appetising. As we typically eat with our eyes, using piping bags or food moulds will help make modified food look more appealing and therefore will help anyone on a modified diet to maintain a healthy weight.
Adding food-based activities to your activity programme will not only increase food intake but also will fall under the category of activities of daily living. These are activities the average adult would do in their own home, such as folding clothes, cooking, and cleaning. Including such activities promotes independence and has a positive impact on mental health, wellbeing, confidence, and self-esteem. There are a lot of different ways to incorporate food into your activities programme. Decorate pizzas with a variety of toppings, peel, or chop vegetables, start a vegetable patch or have themed menus with adjoining activities for the people you support to look forward to.
Promoting good hydration has many benefits from boosting brain function, maintaining urinary and kidney health to healthy digestion. Not feeling thirsty is a natural part of ageing and can also be a symptom or a side effect of other health issues. Dehydration, in care homes for the elderly particularly, is linked to increased falls, delirium, increased urinary tract infections and excessive use of antibiotics. Encouraging fluids isn’t always easy but there are some creative ways to increase the fluid intake of the people you support. Serving ice lollies, jelly or soup will all encourage fluid intake.
Incorporating fluids to your activities programme is an effortless way to encourage extra hydration. Making smoothies or mocktails are great activities as you can include the people you support in the creation of the final product as well as increasing fluid intake. Hosting a coffee morning or going out for tea and cake to a local café or garden centre is another enjoyable way to encourage fluid intake.
Our activity planner for 2022 so far includes a few ideas for nutrition and hydration activities, take a look.
The Nourish platform enables you to set fluid goals, monitor food and fluid intake and set alert warnings for anyone you support who has not met their goal for that day. This enables care teams to ensure that the people you support are eating and drinking enough and if they are not, this can be investigated and corrected. Within the Nourish care system, carers can record MUST scores using the BAPEN scale in just three clicks of a button, all previous or historical numerical data is pulled through from previous scores, migrating the information to eliminate the need for manual calculation and reduce the risk of human error. These can be scheduled at regular intervals so that care teams are alerted when MUST assessments are due. Reports can also be generated quickly and easily that compare previous records.
By recording this kind of data and using Nourish’s insights and reports functions, trends will be spotted earlier. Fish & Chip Friday is a common menu theme across care homes and if someone you support periodically leaves their meal untouched on a Friday, it may be the case they do not like this meal. Recording this data in Nourish enables this information to be shared across care teams and departments quickly and easily.
Some of the people you support may have different nutritional needs such as an allergy or a different level of food and drink. This is logged in each resident’s care plan under the eating and drinking section and then contextually summarised for the carers providing fluid or food interactions to view their preferences, likes/dislikes, and dietary requirements. This can either be shown as a checklist for carers to adhere to or a guide, ensuring every carer and every staff member, including agency, are aware of preference or requirement.
With fluid intake, meal preferences and consumption, and MUST scores all recorded and stored in one place and instantly available, updating nutrition and hydration care plans has never been easier or more effective.