For many care home owners, the most difficult part of running the show is the care home administrator. Paying staff, ordering supplies complying with legislation and making sure the right forms are filled in. It seems to be an endless task, making sure every box is correctly ticked. There are around 11,300 care homes for older people in the UK, so that’s a lot of care home administrator.
Never fear, help is here!
The good news is that there are several things you can do to help your residential care home run smoothly. This leaves you more time to look after the residents and provide high quality care.
From finding the right software to support your work to training and your staff and getting back more time to yourself. Here are six tips to help you cut down on superfluous time spent on care home paperwork for care home administrator.
Get organised from the start
Most new care home administrator experience a large burst of paperwork when they first set up in business in care services. This is a crucial stage in operations and must not be skipped or left for later. If you can get your head down and plough through everything at an early stage, the care home administrator will be less later on. Plus, you can feel reassured that you have done everything you need to do to operate legally.
Examples include registering with the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and HMRC, as well as drafting comprehensive business and financial plans. Also, never scrimp on insurance. If you don’t have the right cover in place, the paperwork after something untoward takes place will be excruciating. Not to mention the emotional fallout.
Get decent software in place
These days, ‘paperwork’; is not just confined to hard copies of documents. Business owners can use a wide range of software packages to help them. From accounting and payroll systems to ordering and procurement, using the right software can really help cut down on needless logistics and annoying processes. Look for software that matches the type and size of residential care home you are running. Some systems help you keep track of receipts and invoices too, which is a huge help when it comes to paying taxes.
Get your people proper training
However clever your new hires may be, none of them will know your business inside out, absolutely, without fail. This can slow down care home administrator efficiency and even affect office administration, administrative functions and how your residents are cared for. Invest in good training to help your people do their jobs to the best of their ability and knowledge and work closely with them.
This makes your life easier because you don’t have to chase them to do their job or complete the right paperwork. It helps the residents too, as they will feel safer if those around them are complete and calm. It also helps ensure that the right medications are dispensed if you know staff are on top of the paperwork.
Get some of that training for yourself, too
Don’t forget to invest in yourself. Running of all administrative tasks with the trained manpower is far better then with untrained one . Even if you hire other people to handle your care home administrator, there will be times when they are unavailable. You will feel far more able to take over the care home administrator paperwork if you know what to do yourself.
Training can encompass a lot more than admin too. Look out for courses in administrative assistant marketing, event management, first aid, health and safety, care assistant and anything else you feel could be useful to ensure the smooth running of a care home.
Get involved in some marketing
This tip might seem like it is adding to your paperwork burden, but it’s all about future returns on investment. The more people who use your services, the less time you need to take trying to juggle finances and urgently fill empty rooms to stay viable. Once a marketing campaign has been established, it can largely run itself. Plan how to use digital marketing avenues such as social media, email, online advertising and your own website. If you keep this up to date – or employ someone to do so for you – it can be a powerful marketing tool. More and more older people are connected to the online world now, so it’s time to take advantage of that.
Get back more time for yourself
Our final tip is to employ someone else to do as much of the care home administrator for you. Even with fancy software, you will still need some human interaction to enter data, pull reports and assess the situation. Someone with a talent for care home administration can also triage your emails, be the first point of contact for families and liaise with the CQC. This gives you space in your diary to visit residents, spend time with your own family and look after your own mental health. All vital things for a management team and care home manager to achieve
