Staffing Smarter, Caring Better: Royal Star and Garter’s Data-Driven Leap with Person Centred Software

"Easy integration between our care planning and staffing brings consistent, organised person-centred care."

The data provided by the platform is easy to read and understand, but more still it’s very user friendly and presented clearly, with all the pertinent information clearly viewable in the main dashboard. It’s helped us to improve consistency because now it’s expected that every home keeps the Staffing and Dependency tool updated, and because of this we’ve been able to highlight patterns and share learnings across our homes. 

That consistency comes easy because the ability to pull data through from mCare into the Staffing and Dependency tool means that we have uniform information on resident needs across our digital platforms, and it saves us a huge amount of time if, for example, a new resident comes in and we have to add them to the system. From the very start of that process with mCare, it makes the process much easier and more accurate. There’s a very thorough process of due diligence done before that person moves in. We have clinical leads conduct care assessments, for example, but the reality there is a short window of time to get a lot of information down. So, when we’re trying to paint a picture of someone who might be coming to us from a hospital setting, we’re lucky in that we can use PCS’s integration with GP Connect to pull that information through, which goes into mCare, and then goes into the Staffing and Dependency tool. 

Data-driven decisions help with higher fees and local authority funding

One of the best things about the tool is that it gives our home managers or senior team members considerable weight to what they’re saying, because everything is reinforced by data. So, when we have staffing issues, they can build an internal process and ask questions like what that process looks like and what needs to change. They can ask, do we need more staff? And if so, how can we prove it? That’s the kind of difference the Staffing and Dependency tool makes; it gives you clear cut data that shows when and where you need your staff the most.  

That same data is also invaluable for external use. Whether it’s to justify higher fees based on higher needs of residents or to use for proof for improved local authority funding, it helps us evidence what we require to provide the best possible care, and it eliminates any chance of wasted recourses. You can show the level of support you are offering and use that as a basis for what can be improved. That, coupled with the level of detail in care records available through mCare, means we can provide a full 360-degree view on our methods and practices. 

Using the Staffing and Dependency tool improves compliance 

On our compliance journey, we’ve taken great steps to overhaul our audit process, and the Staffing and Dependency tool has helped us do that. From a local authority perspective, there have been more questions asked on how we are calculating dependency. For them, it isn’t good enough anymore to just say, ‘We’re using an Excel spreadsheet’, or we just ‘know’ - that kind of process isn’t acceptable anymore. 

We needed something more solid than that, and we’ve been able to demonstrate compliance by showing that we have identified the areas where before we didn’t know we had issues, and that we are taking steps to make things better. But also, it shows the depth of our efforts to improve care provision. It’s been said that when it comes to compliance, providing care is only half of it – you must show how you’re doing it. Now we can go to them and say, we’re doing a lot more than you think we are, and here is the proof. We wouldn’t be without it now! 

Reducing agency reliance and cutting costs

The Staffing and Dependency tool hasn’t just improved our care provision, or staffing decision-making and streamlined our overall operations through integration with mCare, but it’s also helped us save money. One crucial way it’s done this is by helping us to reduce our agency usage across all homes.

While we are a not-for-profit organisation, it’s still essential that we remain financially stable, particularly in today’s changing climate. The Staffing and Dependency tool has reduced our agency spend because it helped us to make the most use out of the staff we have, where they are best suited and when, and in what skill mix.  

It's helped us to pinpoint when and where staff have been brought in unnecessarily. Once we started using the tool, we understood the best ways to maximise the resources we had. It’s all down to the efficiency of the system, and it helped us be more efficient with our staffing. 

Realising the potential of digital transformation

Where we found the most value was how mCare and the Staffing and Dependency tool worked together to help us streamline and integrate our data. In this, we didn’t have to input data multiple times. We could just pull it through from mCare and use it to start calculating dependency. We couldn’t go back to what we were doing before, and we’ve found that using the Staffing and Dependency tool has been crucial for us to take that next step in the journey of digital transformation. I couldn’t recommend it, or working with PCS, highly enough!