The hotel services team has moved forwards and is now working with a number of homes within the group. Initially piloting the implementation of hotel services into Dormy House, one of our more prestigious group homes based in Sunningdale, Berkshire.
Through surveying residents, the team soon became aware that there were other locations that would benefit from the implementation of Hotel Services, and that all homes would benefit from additional training and development in areas relating to Hotel Services including Laundry, Housekeeping and Catering. These developments are aimed at creating greater choice for residents in our care homes, promoting individuality and choice, as we truly take residents personal preferences into consideration thus enabling service users to retain their personalities and individuality.
New initiatives underway include the introduction of “Caring Homes Chef Development Days”, which are a collaborative effort between Caring Homes and our service partners Sharecare and 3663 who attend the development days and assist in the assessment of our Chefs.
The Chefs days incorporate training and development and culminate in a Ready, Steady, Cook scenario whereby our chefs compete against the clock to prepare and cook a meal that is suitable for elderly people. Throughout the day Caring Homes Chefs are rigorously tested through the Ready Steady Cook scenario, encouraging confidence in price awareness to develop and gain the best from their menus, through extensive role-play interviews to assess both management ability and how to communicate with residents in a professional and dignified manner.
Our recent Chef Days have proven a great success and have supported our extensive training and development programme, stimulated ideas for menu planning incorporating meals of high nutritional content, and ensured that our chefs are prepared for preparing and cooking meals on time and on budget – what is more is they are fun!
In furtherance of the groups overall commitment towards general improvements in resident services, we have identified a number of care homes where we believe that residents would greatly benefit from a full compliment of hotel services – these homes are not only determined through canvassing residents, but also through in-depth CACI analysis which determines social habits and demography. The need for implementation of Hotel Services is identified through the geo-demographic analysis – combined with surveys amongst residents – which determine the level of hotel service implementation required at an individual site – therefore we are able to directly meet the individual needs on a home by home basis – thus tailoring our service to meet the needs of our residents/
Our Flagship Care Home Dormy House is described as a Hotel within a care home for example, whereas some of our other locations adopt a slightly lesser level of services – our hotel services team strive to implement a tailored service to each of our locations on an individual basis.
All of the homes that are currently undergoing development of hotel services are benefiting from the additional staff training and development across all departments to ensure a level of consistency in service. Further training and development initiatives are in progress and where in operation have demonstrated improvements, the team will continue to grow through additional service manager appointments and a supportive regional structure ensuring consistency and on-going development, as Caring Homes work towards achieving their aim of – leading the way in Hotel Services.