Member Article

NICE guideline will help drive up standards

A new guideline for home care that has been issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and focuses on training and person-centred care practices, will help drive up quality levels across the industry, according to a leading provider.

“We strongly welcome the new NICE guideline, as for too long there have been vast differences in quality standards across the home care sector,” commented Barry Sweetbaum, managing director of SweetTree Home Care Services.

He continued: “The guideline makes it clear what is expected from providers and should ultimately help families to ask the right questions and ensure they are receiving the level of quality care they want and deserve.” Among the recommendations made in the NICE guidelines, home care providers are advised to:

• Ensure services support the aspirations, goals and priorities of each person, and that they and their carers are treated with empathy, courtesy and respect.
• Make sure support focuses on what people can or would like to do, not just what they can’t do.
• Prioritise continuity of care by ensuring the person has the same home care worker or workers so that they can become familiar and build a relationship.

Barry continued: “It is fantastic to see that NICE is putting such strong emphasis on person-centred care, as well as the training and development of carers. They have recommended home care workers should receive support - from training and development, to ensuring they have enough time to offer sufficient care and support for people in a caring and compassionate way.

“These are values that have formed the basis of SweetTree’s operations since we first founded the company over a decade ago. We believe high quality care begins with quality carers and that comes from finding the best people, providing the best ongoing training and supporting them to do their role to the best of their ability.

“We’re proud to be an Investors in People Gold standard company and to have been the first home care provider in the UK to achieve the highly regarded AIM Awards Quality Mark for our in-house training programmes.”

He concluded: “Carers are exceptional individuals that have entered the profession as they want to make a difference to other peoples’ lives. By highlighting the areas of training and support for carers, and the importance of providing person-centred care that is tailored to each individual, we hope that quality standards will raise.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by SweetTree Home Care Services .