Teaching Care Homes

Creating Excellence in Care Through Learning and Innovation

In 2016, Care England was given a grant by the Department of Health to develop the concept of a Teaching Care Home. The Teaching Care Homes pilot programme aims to create centres of care that demonstrate excellence and innovation in nurse-led care and where the learning environment benefits staff and students.

Deborah Sturdy, Visiting Professor at Bucks New University and Honorary Nursing Advisor to Care England, comments:

‘The social care workforce provides complex care for thousands of people living in long term care settings. It is imperative that nurses and care workers share and learn together; we need to raise the bar.  Care home nursing teams deliver complex, skilled care in nurse led units across the country.  The development of Teaching Care Home is one way in which we can change the narrative of nursing and how it is perceived.  At a time when it is hard to recruit and retain nurses the Teaching Care Home is a way in which we can help encourage nurses into the sector by creating confidence about their roles,prominence in the wider nursing community and influence the next generation of the profession.’

As part of this pilot, The Foundation of Nursing Studies (FoNS) is leading a programme of learning and support to help five care home teams to become recognised as ‘flagship homes’, centres of excellence in person-centred care where learning and innovation is a continuous process. These centres will be supportive places for staff to work, where they feel valued and confident to take responsibility for care, learning and innovation.Residents and families will experience care that is centred on their needs.

The five homes from across England taking part in the pilot programme are:

·       Millbrook Lodge, Orders of St John Care Trust in Gloucestershire

·       Rose Court, HC-One in Bury

·       Berwick Grange, MHA in Harrogate

·       Lady Sarah Cohen House, Jewish Care in Barnet

·       Chester Court, Barchester in Bedlington

Working with FoNS, the five care home teams have created a draft vision for a Teaching Care Home  and this was shared in our 1^st Tweet Chat on 10^thJanuary 2017 to widen the debate around person-centredness in a Teaching Care Home. A summary of this discussion is available here . Further information about the first tweet chat can be found here.

In this 2^nd Tweet Chat on 2^nd February 2017 at 8pm, we would like to explore how we can create effective learning environments in care homes.

These Tweet Chats will be followed by a series of round table discussions, culminating in the co-creation of a vision of a Teaching Care Home that can be shared and used as a focal point for discussions, developments and/or evaluation within homes in the future.

Further reading

For further information about Teaching Care Homes go to:

·     http://www.careengland.org.uk/teaching-care-home

·     http://www.fons.org/programmes/care-sector.aspx?page=teaching

A microsite for the care sector has been developedand hosted by Nursing Times:

http://www.nursingtimes.net/careengland/care-sector-resources

Preceding tweet chat with summary

For further information about FoNS go to:

www.fons.org

About our guest hosts

Dr Theresa Shaw Chief Executive Foundation of Nursing Studies NursD, BA(Hons) Nursing Education, RNT, RN

Theresa is passionate about nursing and enabling nurses to flourish as caring, knowledgeable and skilled practitioners. As CEO, she is proud of the work FoNS has contributed to this and to developing nursing practice and improving patient experience of care. Theresa has been a Registered Nurse for over 30 years. She worked in the NHS for 17 years during which time her experience spanned clinical nursing, nurse education and practice development. Whilst her clinical expertise lies in the field of cardio-thoracic nursing, Theresa has worked with and supported nurses and nurse-led teams across health and social care practice. She has held several External Examiner positions for academic institutions and chaired the NICE Guideline Development Group for Irritable Bowel Syndrome. Theresa is part of editorial team for the International Practice Development Journal and a member of both the RCN Nursing Advisory Group and the RCNi Editorial Advisory Board; she is also an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at Canterbury Christ Church University, England, UK. Theresa is regularly invited to speak locally and nationally on enabling practice based development and research in nursing, transformation and leadership and in 2014 was proud to be named on the inaugural Nursing Times Leaders List, celebrating the most inspirational role models in nursing.

Kate Sanders, PracticeDevelopment Facilitator Foundation of Nursing Studies MSc,BSc (Hons), RHV, RN

Kate Sanders joined the Foundation of Nursing Studies (FoNS) as a Practice Development Facilitator about 15 years ago. Prior to this she worked clinically in a variety of acute and community settings where she became increasingly interested and involved in activities and initiatives to improve practice. At FoNS, Kate has led a number of improvement programmes. This involves working with nurse-led health and social care teams to develop and share innovative ways of improving practice; thereby enabling them to provide care that is person-centred, high quality and evidence-based. Kate is also the Managing Editor of the International Practice Development Journal, a collaborative initiative between FoNS and the International Practice Development Collaborative.

Kate actively represents FoNS on a range of national and international initiatives and boards and is an Honorary Senior Lecturer with Canterbury Christ Church University, England. 

She is also an Affiliate Member of the Centre for Person-centred Practice Research, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, where she is currently studying part-time for a PhD. This has evolved out of an increasing interest in the well-being of staff and how this impacts on their ability to be creative and innovative and to deliver person-centred care.