Karen Middleton, CEO of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, considers how physiotherapy helps care home residents to age well and has a role to play in keeping your staff fit as well.

“The modern physiotherapist has a very broad range of skills and this is demonstrated in care homes perhaps as clearly as any setting.

Most people will be aware of the treatment that is delivered to people after illness or injury.

Physiotherapists provide rehabilitation following a stroke or other serious illness and ongoing treatment for people with long-term conditions, such as arthritis or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Often there will be more than one such condition, so physiotherapists use their expertise to draw up a programme of care that helps residents maintain a level of mobility and function.

Physiotherapists also play an essential role in delivering the National Dementia Strategy and there is evidence to show that these interventions reduce the risk of developing the disease, or work to delay the onset and progression of it.

As an example, physiotherapists have the knowledge and skills to identify and treat pain, which many people with dementia have difficulty expressing.

They also provide essential support and education to care home staff and relatives.

The work done by physiotherapists in care homes is not just about providing treatment, however – their role in preventing future ill-health is every bit as important and brings benefits for residents’ physical and mental wellbeing.

Physiotherapists provide advice on the safe ways to exercise at any age, and lead classes that give residents the opportunity to get some physical activity into their weekly routine.

This helps people manage a long-term condition to prevent it from worsening to a point that it requires a hospital admission.

It improves cardiovascular health and keeps the bones, joints and muscles in good working order.

And exercise classes are also shown to reduce the chances of a fall by maintaining muscle strength and improving balance.

Since more than a third of people aged over 65 suffer one or more falls a year, the benefits of this work in a care home are obvious.

Physiotherapy doesn’t just need to be available to residents, however.

An additional role physiotherapists can play in care homes is to provide occupational health services for staff.

Sickness absence can ruin working lives and is expensive for employers because of lower productivity and higher costs. In care homes, it can also be a problem when residents have built up a relationship with staff.

Physiotherapists keep people fit for work and identify any changes that need to be made to the working patterns or the facility to ensure residents receive a continuity of care.

Anyone involved in the care sector – be it as a manager, employee, resident or relative – will know that extraordinary medical advances are keeping people alive longer than ever.

What physiotherapists do – particularly in care homes – is to help people make the most of those additional years by keeping them active, mobile and well.”

For more information on physiotherapy, advice on safe exercising for older people, and details of how to access services, visit www.csp.org.uk.

“An indispensable part of our holistic care”

Salvation Army’s Furze Hill Care Home has been using our Care Charts for over a year now, and manager Ellie Cant has given her agreement for us to reprint her recent email to us here.

“We find our Remember-I’m-Me Standard Care Charts an indispensable part of our holistic care for residents. We initially bought 10 to see whether they would work for us. The staff and relatives were all very pleased, so we then bought enough to give one to every resident. They’ve been in place for over a year now; because they are wipe clean they can be changed as often as needed and have proved very durable.”

So, not only are the charts having a beneficial impact on the quality of life of staff, relatives and residents, but because the care home can use them time and time again they are excellent value for money.

Read more about the full range of Care Charts.

“It makes such a difference…”

Apex Care’s Knightswood Care Home has been using our Twist-N-View Care Charts since June 2013, and manager Jayne Booth was kind enough to give us the following feedback…

“We’ve been using the Twist-N-View Care Charts for 6 months, and we find them particularly useful for ensuring new staff are immediately aware of resident’s needs and preferences, as well as making the information available for visiting professionals like nurses. It makes such a difference if a resident is unable to communicate effectively themselves. The system of symbols and prompts ensures we use easy-to-understand, simple English and staff can easily find the information they need.” .

“I decided if there was no such thing I’d have to invent it…”

Most of our charts are currently bought by care homes or domiciliary agencies, but we welcome individual orders as well, and love to hear the stories that have brought someone to our door. Jo placed an order with us in early January…

“I found you on Google because I was searching (not for the first time) to see if there was anything like your care charts already in existence. After several years of trying to get messages across to staff in all sorts of settings (home, hospital, care home), I decided that if there was no such thing, I would have to invent it! Luckily for me, you have already done that part…”

Jo’s Mum is in a care home, she has bought a Care Chart to help with her care and because Jo believes (as we do) it will be better used if it is part of the system of care within the care home, she has bought a Promo pack to see if the care home might be interested in adopting them too. We look forward to a positive outcome!

More about Promo Packs…

“Where can we buy these please…?”

Our Pocket Chart caught the attention of hospital staff in Staffordshire recently. Obviously that’s the idea, but this time, after a care home manager had completed and sent in a Pocket Care Chart with one of her residents who had to make a trip to hospital, she received a phone call from the ward asking where they could buy some for other patients! This small but perfectly formed version of our care charts is ideal for ensuring that an individual’s needs and preferences can be made known wherever they are. Every care home should have a pack in the drawer!

More about Pocket Charts

It’s surely very simple, isn’t it? Pay your staff more and they’ll provide better performance. Not so, according to Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In certain circumstances, he suggests, it could even lead to less efficiency.

The secret to high performance and satisfaction—at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.

Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life.

Here is an entertaining YouTube clip that helps clarify what Pink is talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

This is not an excuse to pay staff less – Pink does make it clear that for his hypothesise to work employees have to be earning enough money to know they can pay the bills – but it does suggest the frequently presented argument: ‘staff need to be paid better if we are to expect higher standards’ does not stack up.

Another way of looking at this is in terms of employee engagement, and if you’re conscious that your staff may not be as engaged as you’d like, you are not alone. Globally, according to Towers Watson’s 2012 Global Workforce Study, only 35% of employees around the world are strongly engaged, meaning they are freely giving their time, energy, creativity and knowledge to their work. And in the UK it is a lowly 27%, ranking us 9th in the 12 largest economies.

Engagement is understood to have a huge impact on staff retention: Engage for Success suggests that “highly engaged organisations have the potential to reduce staff turnover by 87%; the disengaged are four times more likely to leave the organisation than the average employee (CLC 2008).”

There’s a lot of interesting reading in the links provided above, but if you want it in a nutshell, make sure that your company values are clear and understood, empower your staff by ensuring they have the right tools and training to do their jobs properly, value them in the same way you value your ‘customers’, give them scope to excel in their work, and make sure you listen to, and act on, their ideas for what could be improved. And it is all these things, say the experts, and not extra money or bonuses that will help you retain your staff and improve your chances of having a happy and engaged workforce, translating into better outcomes for the individuals in your care.

Last month I heard we had been shortlisted for the south east Innovator Award by the GB Care Awards, and on Friday 29th Nov we went to the Awards Ceremony to hear that we’d won! As much as I already knew that these products, inspired by my husband’s experience with dementia, really do make a difference, it’s always wonderful to have it confirmed by something like this.

In the judges’ words: “Zoe has developed and continues to develop a truly excellent innovative idea that meets the needs of the residents and staff and ensures quality of care. A well deserved winner – congratulations!”

I met some great people on the night, and would like to congratulate all winners and runners-up.

Latest: See also Observer / Nesta list of New Radicals 2014

I am so proud that the Care Charts have been selected as finalists for the Innovation Award in this year’s GB Care Awards. It’s great to have our hard work and the value of our products recognised. Congratulations to all the other finalists across all categories and regions and fingers crossed for the next round!

We are very proud to have our care charts in use at the care home managed by the National Care Home Manager of the Year, Alison Bedford, which has also recently become the first care home in the country to be accredited with the Excellence in Care Standard award.

“2013 is turning out to be a very good year for Peregrine House,” said owner Kevin O’Sullivan, “Alison thoroughly deserves her award, and we’re pleased that the hard work and excellent attitude of all our staff has been recognised with the Excellence in Care Standard Award as well. Our aim is to care for our residents in the same way that we would look after the most loved member of our own family, and we’ve been using the Remember-I’m-Me Care Charts successfully for over a year now to help us achieve that aim.”