Care control making family members feel part of loved one’s care – a case study with Carich Care

Carich Care is one of our long-term customers who have been with Care Control for 3 and a half years. They are a small, supported living organisation with only 6 service users at current but due to the severe complex needs of these users, they have 50 members of hard working, dedicated staff.

We had a catch up with Carol Haines, Registered Manager, to find out more about the fantastic work and care which is provided by everyone at Carich Care and how Care Control has helped them over the years.

About Carich Care

Carich Care’s role is to support adults with complex needs, learning difficulties, mental health issues, challenging behaviours, and Autism. Most of their service users’ care packages involve a minimum of 1:1 care 15 hours a day, 3 are 1:1 15 hours a day with 2:1 for the extra hours and 1 service user is 2:1 24 hours a day. The 50 staff make up the hours that need to be supported for their service users.

“I am very very very proud to say we have a fantastic staff team, that devote and goes above and beyond,” said Carol when I pointed out how the staff must be doing an amazing job to provide this level of care.

Carich Care and Care Control

Carol first came across Care Control about 5 years ago at a care conference where they met our MD Matt Luckham and Key Accounts Manager Lorna Prowse, where the Director of Carich Care, who had not set it up at this point, agreed to use Care Control when they got Carich Care up and running.

Care Control was originally set up for care homes and elderly patients, and over the years we have adapted Care Control to be able to function and work for other care organisations. This was something that Carich Care did notice at the beginning of their journey 3 and a half years ago; however, they have worked alongside our customer service and development teams to get Care Control to work for them.

“Lorna was completely amazing at adapting Care Control for us, to fit our needs.”

Whilst setting up Care Control Carol and Lorna maintained a strong relationship which remains today, if there is anything she needs to contact us about.

“What I like about Care Control is they will try to adapt to suit your needs, so the customer service is really good”

When asked about her favourite element of Care Control Carol responded “For me as a Registered Manager, is being able to see what is going on within each setting from one device in real-time and get the email alerts, that you can set up for whatever you want, and everything else. That just is amazing for me because I can’t physically be in all the settings.”

Another long-term favourite feature for Carol and one which is important, especially in supported living with their service users is Care Control’s Friends and Family feature.

“I absolutely LOVE that family have access, it is so important within our business to be open and transparent. That family can see exactly what is going on with their loved ones in real-time. For them to be able to see the activities because you can take photographs and you can write up is so important. That works beautifully.”

Carol also mentioned how in the past when it was just paper loved ones would not be able to be updated often enough and would have to request copies of notes. She also said how much friends and family love Care Control.

“I think it is the fact they feel part of their loved one’s care which they should be, they can see what they are eating, drinking, what kind of day they have had…. It helps builds relationships”

We then went to discuss staff relationships with Care Control, and how they got on with it especially since it was implemented as soon as the business was started. It was a bit of a mixture at first with “the young people taking to it like ducks to water, and the older staff being wary at first, but the Care Control pocket is actually really easy to use. Once they had their implementation and went through Care Control Academy, they were fine.”

The conversation went onto what aspect of running Carich Care would be harder without Care Control and to which Carol responded “being able to go into the care note analysis, meeting psychologists, social workers and they want to know certain things, instead of going through loads of paper to find out what they want. It is so easy having it all to hand in one place.”

Finally, I asked Carol would you recommend Care Control to other supported living organisations “Yes, I absolutely would.” For finishing additional comments Carol added, “The friendliness of everyone, whenever you contact Care Control everyone is willing to help and if they can’t help, they will go and find a solution.”