Just over two years ago, in February 2014, I left the local authority where I worked as a social worker. My mission was to set up and run an outstanding care provider. Having seen poor practice in the homecare sector, I felt I needed to try and make a change. And now the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated ClarkeCare, the service I run in Bury St Edmunds, as ‘outstanding’.
Andrea Sutcliffe, chief inspector of adult social care at the CQC, said: “The quality of care which our inspectors found here was exceptional and I am very pleased that we can celebrate the service’s achievements. An outstanding service is the result of a tremendous amount of hard work and commitment. I would like to thank and congratulate everyone involved”.
Has it been easy? Absolutely not. I’ve worked 60+ hours every week to make it the kind of care service I would happily have care for my mum. It has taken dedication, hard work, compassion and bucket loads of energy to make this a successful care service and maintain the high standards we have set. Recruiting the right people, marketing the business, training and caring all take up a huge amount of my time.
Despite the long days, I wouldn’t change a thing. The great feedback you receive from knowing you are delivering safe, effective care makes it such a rewarding job. Clients told the inspector: “They’re there for the whole family”; “Going above and beyond”; “Extremely attentive, look at the whole family set up, call me and ask how I am getting on.” That is why we do what we do – to make clients and families feel well cared for and to see the care service they are receiving as vital to their health and wellbeing.
I have always want ClarkeCare to raise the profile of care as a professional career. Just as nurses are respected for their role, I want great care workers to be shown the same regard. Programmes highlighting abuse of older people are of course a way of raising the importance of safeguarding the most vulnerable people in our society. However, great care workers need to have a light shone on their work.
More people should know about the compassion that they show day in, day out. Homecare workers provide a vital service which is a fundamental foundation of the health service. Hospitals are bursting with people who could be supported at home instead. So why aren’t they at home?
But there aren’t enough great care providers and care workers to meet the demand. We need to work together to encourage more people into a caring role. It’s a fantastically rewarding career, and with our growing ageing population, good care workers will never be out of a job.
Now we have our outstanding rating, my aim is to continue building a team of care professional assistants who love what they do and aren’t ashamed to say they work in care. I have strived to motivate my team and make them proud of what they do. They are very much part of the building of the business and the care planning with clients. They are shown respect for their ideas, and we say “thank you” a lot.
One of my care workers told the inspector: “I just love going in ... I do everything as I would like it done to me. I ask [the person] if I could do anything different, I always ask.” Another said: “The managers are approachable and friendly. They listen to us and respond to us. I feel valued as a member of the team.”
To know the team is happy makes me so proud and gives me the motivation to continue driving this outstanding service forward.
Running any business has its ups and downs, but there are far more highs than lows in ClarkeCare. We laugh a lot, celebrate achievements and all love what we do. I’m hugely grateful to the CQC for recognising how hard we work to provide this vital service. So many people have contacted me saying they would like to start their own care agency, which is fantastic. The more outstanding agencies we have out there, the better.
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