Our Training
We have established an award–winning approach to training in which health & safety, service user choice and independence, staff welfare and development, and consistency and continuity of service are championed. In 2006, we won a prestigious National Training Award and this was added to in 2008 when we won a South East Business Award for ‘Excellence in Skills and Development’.
GMTV's Andrew Castle presenting us with a National Training Award.
Our internal team of risk assessors, National Vocational Training (NVQ) assessors and resident Registered General Nurse (RGN) have completed ‘train the trainers’ courses which, when added to their specialist under–pinning care knowledge, enables us to deliver and certificate our own programme of mandatory training for all our care staff, which includes:
- Health & safety
- Moving and handling
- Infection control
- Communication and consultation
- Medication
- Basic first aid
- Safeguarding adults
- Food hygiene
and these are delivered by us every week on a rolling programme.
In addition, we deliver to our staff a monthly programme of healthcare and medical–related topics, on a rolling renewal basis, including:
- Stroke / heart attack
- Catheter / stoma care
- Arthritis
- Epilepsy
- Bereavement
- Pressure areas
- Diet and nutrition
- Heatwave / big freeze
- Parkinson’s disease
- Dementia
- Diabetes
- Re–enablement
- End–of–life pathways and palliative care
Colin Jackson presenting us with another national award for our training.
Training is therefore always available to care staff and is scheduled into the working roster of each member of staff. Our computerised care management system also holds training records and provides a training reminder to ensure that all certifications are maintained up–to–date.
We provide all of our care staff with a personalised work–based introduction to care which is called an Induction Programme and is to the standards of Skills for Care, the organisation which defines the standards for training in the social care sector.
We also pay the full course fees and provide in–house support to our staff who choose to achieve a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) in Health & Social Care. Our staff are paid for attending all training and their training time is built into their daily duties.
The majority of training is delivered in our local training hubs. These facilities are equipped with all the moving and handling aids that a care support worker is likely to come into contact with in the community, including manual and electronic versions of this equipment. These facilities are also fitted with audio–visual presentation equipment.
We also work with specialist external trainers, to top–up our specialist care–related training, and provide administration, business management and leadership vocational skills training to our office staff.
