Belong Atherton Uses Handheld Devices to Record Outstanding Care

Belong Atherton Care Village in Atherton, Greater Manchester, cares for up to 73 people who require nursing and personal care, including people who may be living with dementia.

Claire says that paper records, “weren’t always legible or easily accessible.” Since moving to Mobile Care Monitoring, the care home has gone from recording “just 2 care notes a day to over 40 care notes a day for each resident.”

“I would never go back to paper documentation. Mobile Care Monitoring has changed the way that we work and provide person-centred care for people.”

Evidencing care on a familiar handheld device app means that staff are now able to capture moments quickly and easily. Claire says she knows they probably wouldn’t have been able to before.

Watch the video interview with Claire and Kevin

Impementing digital care planning handheld devices

Kevin Brownsword, IT Manager, led the decision and implementation of an Person Centred Software’s digital care planning system.

He says, “One of the great advantages of Person Centred Software, is that the technology that we’re using is familiar to all of our colleagues. It’s mobile-based, they’re handheld devices, like phones, that they’re using every day in their everyday lives, so it’s not a big change to move to this in the workplace.”

“Now staff are really motivated with recording care so that we can show families exactly what the residents are participating in.”

Claire adds that “it was fun to learn, and it was great to see the staff developing.”

CQC Outstanding rating

With much more information recorded, Belong is able to use the evidence to “improve and drive the quality of care.”

At the latest inspection, CQC rated Belong Atherton Care Village an Outstanding service. Claire said that the inspectors “liked the in-depth care plans” and Mobile Care Monitoring helped them to demonstrate to CQC that “Belong is all about innovation and finding better ways of evidencing what we’re doing.”

Relatives Gateway magical moments

“I am really proud that we are able to showcase what we actually do at the village,” says Claire. “Relatives Gateway is amazing. We had a lady from Australia and she was able to access her dad’s records. She could see those magical moments that we were capturing for Dad in his day to day life.”

“Now staff are really motivated with recording care so that we can show families exactly what the residents are participating in.”