It seems today that every business organisation out there is asking for our feedback, inviting us to leave reviews online and encouraging us to tell our friends if we have been pleased with their service. Feedback matters, as it is one of the most powerful ways to tell what people think about how we are doing – both positively and negatively. For care homes, gathering this information is hugely important. It helps care staff know what services are working well and how they can improve what they do to help residents feel safe, happy, comfortable and listened to.
Why is listening to feedback so important?
When residents feel listened to, they feel empowered, respected and part of the team rather than a ‘nuisance’ that needs to be tolerated. This automatically boosts their confidence and satisfaction. Feedback helps enhance service quality, as it highlights areas in need of improvement so resources and efforts can be redirected where they are needed most.
Feedback also helps care home managers and staff learn and grow in their roles. Nobody is perfect, and when feedback is given kindly and constructively it can really help people address any gaps in knowledge or skills for the benefit of everyone involved. Positive feedback about individual members of staff can be incredibly motivating for them and encourage them to stay longer in their role and build their career with your care home. This helps you retain good team members and reduce the costs associated with unnecessary staff turnover.
Finally, feedback ensures that care homes can meet industry regulations, model best practice and ensure legal compliance, which helps to keep standards high and residents safe and fulfilled. The current focus on person-led care within the healthcare sector is a welcome one; however, it relies on feedback to enable care managers to develop truly personalised, individual care plans and support.
Residents’, family, friends and staff
Feedback can come from several different avenues in residential care. Listening to the residents themselves is clearly the ideal place to start. Encourage them to let you or your staff know what they are happy with about how you look after them and – perhaps more importantly – what they would like to see done differently, or better. After all, they are the people receiving your care and being affected by your decisions and plans. If there are difficulties with communications, look for ways in which you can work out what people are thinking and feeling. Translation tools can help with language barriers, while Care Vision’s monitoring tools for behaviours and emotions can give good insights into how people are feeling and reacting to their environment.
Family members and friends can be a good source for feedback. Often, residents will speak more candidly to those they know better, so you can glean some useful insights by asking visitors if they have any suggestions for how to make their loved one’s experience even better. Suggestions and comments can also come from staff members who have observed certain behaviours or reactions in the residents they look after. They will have had time to build relationships, establish trust and get to know how individual residents react when they are happy, sad, excited, anxious, bored etc.
The value of external feedback
The same goes for visiting medical professionals, therapists, entertainers, pastoral and faith-based visitors, social workers, hairdressers, chiropodists and more. Always take time to listen to what external visitors tell you, as they can offer a fresh perspective. While they can may only have time to see an isolated ‘snapshot’ during a shorter visit with you, this can still help you reconsider how things are done, and whether you can improve or enhance things for your residents and staff. Finally, written feedback is also important, as it allows people more time to consider what they are telling you, rather than possibly speaking in the heat of the moment. Emails, online reviews, letters, feedback forms and social media comments can all be highly useful forms of feedback for care homes. Written feedback can also provide evidence for staff appraisals, care home audits and publicity materials. Care Vision is an ideal tool for storing written feedback so it can be recorded accurately and retrieved easily.