Dickie Chaplin once worked as a keeper with deadly big cats at a safari park. He went on to use his hard-won expertise to advise TV presenters working on nature programmes. Now he is a popular and lively member of the community at Peregrine House in Whitby on the North Yorkshire coast – one of less than 1% of care homes rated outstanding by the Care Quality Commission.
“I can tell you it is superb here, and I’ve always maintained to people who come to visit me that I couldn’t be better looked after by my wife, my mother and anyone else than I am in here,” says Chaplin.
“I just need to ask and it’s given to me ... I don’t smoke or drink alcohol, but I like my tea or coffee, and I can say to them any time: ‘I could murder a cup of tea,’ and they bring me one any time of the day or night.”
Alison Bedford, the home’s experienced registered manager, reflects on Peregrine’s journey.
“We’ve always wanted to be outstanding, and the owners did [too], so once we had gold status from Investors in People from there we thought we can do better than this and we wanted to keep improving,” notes Bedford.
“We looked at things like activities - every home gets people up, washed and doing all those basics tasks - but [the] activities the residents are doing today make a lot of difference.
“It has to come from the top, so if I couldn’t go to the owners to get what we need then it wouldn’t work and they have always been fully committed.”
In their relentless drive to improve their rating, the senior management team called in specialist outside help.
“I was brought in to help improve Peregrine as a great space to live and work, looking at all aspects of the home. But in particular I helped with the people management process because you cannot be an outstanding care provider unless you are an outstanding employer,” says management consultant Hayley Allen.
“My role was to come up with best practice looking at what is currently out there, what they could improve and to come up with innovative ideas that are suitable for this home.”
To some providers, investing in the training and development of their workers is enough, but Bedford has found Allen to be an invaluable part of Peregrine’s success.
“I do believe the most important part of our progress is having the commitment of the whole staff team so we brought Hayley as an independent adviser, and we wouldn’t have done it without her input.
The Peregrine way
Allen conducts regular feedback surveys with residents and families, but she is very clear that the registered manager is key to securing an outstanding rating.
“You can’t do this without the registered manager being absolutely committed, but the thing they may not have is the business or people management expertise,” notes Allen.
She adds: “We feel we have only just begun which is why we brought in lots of innovative initiatives that other providers don’t so we can make sure this is the best place to work. Now it is about making sure everyone is living [according to] our values every day, which we call the Peregrine way.”
A constant reminder of their CARE (compassionate, approachable, respectful and empathetic) philosophy can be found on a sign in reception.
Bedford and Allen understand that every one of the home’s 47 workers, regardless of their role, has to play a part in delivering excellence.
“You have to get the staff on board because they want this to be the best home and they are proud of that. They don’t want to lose our rating and it filters through,” says Bedford.
“So someone might say: ‘I’m only a domestic,’ and I say: ‘You’re not only a domestic.’”
She adds: “Everyone knows those core values so when we do supervision, everything is based around that so they have to give examples of how they are caring, how they are respectful and how they use all their values on a daily basis.
Peregrine have developed a strong relationship with Skills for Care, and Bedford has recently completed a course that will enable them to offer accredited in-house dementia training. They have also used the value based recruitment tools to hire new staff and make sure training stays current.
“We keep all our training records on our national minimum data set for social care (NMDS-SC) account and it’s great to have it all there as at one point it was in different places. So you can just put it in NMDS-SC and it means we can get a matrix every month of who needs training.
Julie Bamford has worked at Peregrine House for two years. She refers to the team as “one big family”.
“You can always knock on Alison’s door and have a word if you need it. If I’m honest, we treat the people who live here as you would your own parents and I would bring my mum and dad here as I think it’s a good home,” says Bamford.
- Peregrine House have made the finals of the Skills for Care accolades awards in the ‘Best employer of under 50 staff’ category.
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