Bolton’s care homes have signed up to a new quality scheme that should see standards improve even further across the borough.
Bolton Council, together with its partners NHS Bolton Commissioning Group (CCG), Bolton NHS Foundation Trust, and the care homes themselves, has launched the Care Home Excellence Programme.
The scheme encourages residential care homes and nursing homes in the borough to commit to high standards of care, improving quality and experience.
The programme has been designed in partnership with care home providers and their residents and families.
As well as creating a healthy market of high quality providers, the programme aims to improve people’s experience of their stay, make homes safer, and help to prevent care home residents from needing a stay in hospital.
Bolton already has an excellent track record of delivering quality care home provision, with 95 per cent of care homes in the borough rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ by the Care Quality Commission. Bolton also out-performs the majority of its neighbouring authorities in Greater Manchester.
However, the programme will enable homes to adopt new initiatives to improve quality further.
Cllr Asif Ibrahim, Bolton Council’s Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care and Safeguarding, said: “We are proud to have some of the best care homes in the country, which reflects the hard work and dedication of care home managers and their staff.
“Not only are we aiming to maintain this level of care, but we are also always striving to improve so that Bolton becomes a national exemplar of care home quality. The new Care Home Excellence Programme has been devised to reward care homes who commit to continuous improvement, in order to make a resident’s experience the very best it can be.”
Mary Moore, Chief Nurse at NHS Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “Bolton is one of the best performing boroughs in Greater Manchester when it comes to the quality of our care homes. The CCG is pleased to be working in partnership to drive up the quality of care and we are delighted that care homes in Bolton have signed up to the new scheme.”
“It’s all about thinking differently about the way we do things, taking a whole system approach and truly working together, whilst putting people at the centre. Many Bolton people are cared for in the borough’s care homes so we must ensure that this is time lived well.”
Rae Wheatcroft, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Bolton NHS Foundation Trust said: “We work very closely with our partners in care homes across Bolton to ensure that their residents are treated out of hospital wherever possible. We welcome the new programme which will help build on this work and improve standards even more for residents in Bolton.”
Bolton’s care home providers were invited to a launch event to find out more about the Care Home Excellence Programme and to be presented with a certificate stating they were signed up to the programme’s aims and objectives.
In return for pledging commitment, all care homes will be rewarded with a Care Home Excellence payment of £10 per bed, per week, for each resident that is funded through the local authority. This represents an investment of £500,000 in care homes by Bolton Council.
In addition, a further £200,000 will be invested by NHS Bolton CCG, who will pay the same quality premium to care home residents who are receiving care funded by Continuing Health Care.
Homes will also benefit from collaborative support, training opportunities and share best practice.
Bolton’s Transformation Funding from Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership will see a further £2m invested in the care home sector for a raft of improvements, including developing technology, increasing training, reducing falls and implementing initiatives to ease hospital transfers.