Skills for Care estimates that the vacancy rate for registered managers is 10.6% (Skills for Care Workforce Survey 2022-23). When you look at the demands placed on registered managers, it’s maybe not surprising that posts are hard to fill.
Multiple commercial, compliance and staffing pressures converge with the role of the registered manager. The job can be a lonely place, leading to stress, burnout and persistent vacancies.
Training, support or buddy systems can all help people deal with the pressure. But, a more effective solution in the longer term is to find ways to make the pressures of the job less acute. To take the weight off registered managers’ shoulders rather than simply giving them better ways to cope.
Why Registered Managers Experience Stress
Stress comes from lack of time and the feeling of not being fully in control. What sometimes gets overlooked is that it also comes from feeling that you’re not being effective or able to do your job as well as you’d like.
These stress factors are a helpful lens through which to examine tools you could use to help manage your care home. Do they give registered managers more time and control, and do they help them work more effectively?
How to Reduce Stress
Proven routes to stress reduction include saving time by eliminating manual tasks and minimising uncertainty by improving task and information management. KareInn achieves this by:
- Automating data gathering and reporting processes to save time and improve accuracy.
- Delivering full oversight of the service through easy-to-read trended dashboards and real-time reporting.
- Providing a readily accessible audit trail for important communications – so registered managers can track that relevant staff members have received messages and acted on them.
- Automated alerts for significant changes in clinical baselines.
- Automated reminders for important actions such as care plan reviews, audits and daily tasks (fewer things to remember).
- Detailed digital care plans that ensure all residents receive high quality, person-centred care.
- Rapid access to information to answer queries from family members or visiting professionals, which enables ‘first-touch’ resolution and reduces support costs.
Data dashboards reveal performance trends grouped by clinical, compliance and business health parameters. There’s also a fourth space that you can populate with any combination of performance trends you choose by simply selecting your chosen reporting widgets.
Registered managers also have a named account manager. Any queries are handled rapidly by somebody with detailed knowledge of your organisation.
CQC-Induced Stress
It would be naive to ignore the reality that CQC inspections add to the stress levels. As the emphasis shifts to continuous monitoring, this stress could easily become chronic, rather than the acute stress caused by an impending periodic inspection.
The best way to combat this stress factor is through KareInn’s automated data collection, trended dashboards and reporting systems with early alerts of potential issues.
The family portal also simplifies how you collect comments and compliments, while automated ‘nudges’ demonstrate a direct link between care plans and actions based around delivering personalised care.
Updating performance data becomes something that happens rather than something that has to be done.
This is a brief summary of the ways that KareInn helps reduce the stress of managing a care home. To discover more, book your KareInn demo.
