Case study
Better dementia care starts with better information
B&M Care is a family-run care provider with 27 homes across the Home Counties. The group supports 1,340 residents, around 90% of whom are living with some form of dementia.
B&M’s teams need to understand each resident as a whole person, not just through care tasks or clinical notes. They need to know someone’s routines, preferences, life story, communication needs, pain indicators and what helps them feel calm when they are anxious or distressed.
PCS Care (formerly mCare) helps B&M Care capture that information in one place. PainChek then adds another layer of insight by helping staff assess pain for residents who may not be able to explain what they are feeling. Together, they help care teams make better decisions for people living with dementia.
The challenge
For many residents, especially those living with advanced dementia, changes in pain, hydration, mood or anxiety may not be easy to explain verbally. A resident may become unsettled, withdrawn or distressed without being able to say what is wrong.
That puts pressure on care teams. Staff need to spot subtle changes, record what they see and share information clearly, so the right support can be put in place. Updating care plans was taking too long, handwriting was not always easy to read, and staff could not capture information at the point of care. For a provider with 27 homes and a strong dementia-care focus, that made consistency harder than it needed to be.
B&M Care needed a better way to record care, understand residents and use data to improve the lived experience of people with dementia.
The Solution
Recording better dementia care with PCS Care
B&M Care has used PCS Care for eight years. The system helps staff record care at the point of care, using handheld devices and icon-driven care notes. That makes it quicker to capture what has happened during the day, while still giving carers space to add detail when needed.
For residents living with dementia, that detail matters. Care teams can record personal preferences, routines, likes and dislikes, life story, future wishes and what helps a resident feel better if they are upset or anxious.
The Who I Am feature is especially useful here. It gives staff a clearer picture of the person behind the care plan, which helps them offer support that feels familiar, respectful and personal.
Using PainChek to understand pain that may be hard to express
B&M Care is using PainChek to support pain assessment for residents living with dementia. PainChek uses facial analysis and artificial intelligence to help assess and score pain levels. That can be particularly useful for residents whose cognitive or functional impairment affects how they show or communicate pain.
B&M Care first implemented PainChek in its largest home, with a vision to expand it across other homes. The integration with mCare means PainChek information can link back into the resident’s care record, helping teams build stronger care plans and put the right pain plan in place.
Gemma Carter, Home Manager at Ryeview Manor, said PCS Care is essential to the home’s work with PainChek because the team can track the data in PCS Care and use it to build better person-centred care plans. She also explained that this has been particularly helpful for residents with advanced dementia, as assessments can link automatically to the care plan so the right pain plan is in place.
That is the value of the integration. PainChek helps staff assess pain more clearly, and PCS Care helps turn that assessment into care planning, evidence and action.
Supporting hydration, hospital transfers and governance
PCS Care also supports B&M Care with other dementia-care priorities. Fluid and Nutrition Monitoring helps teams manage hydration, which is especially important for people living with dementia who may forget to drink or find it harder to communicate thirst. This gives staff a clearer way to monitor fluid intake and act earlier when someone may be at risk of dehydration.
The Hospital Pack feature is used when a resident needs to go into an urgent care setting. It brings together key information from the resident’s record, including details from their Who I Am profile, so hospital teams can understand the person’s needs more quickly.
What improved
PCS Care gives B&M Care stronger dementia-care records, better visibility and more useful data across its homes. Carers can record more information at the point of care. Managers can access records, audits and care plans faster. Senior leaders can use real-time data to support governance, safeguarding and quality improvement.
PainChek adds a more consistent way to assess pain for residents who may not be able to explain what they are feeling, with information linking back into PCS Care so teams can plan care around what each person needs.
PCS Care is an essential piece of software for us and supports our work with PainChek. We can track the data using PCS Care, which helps us build better person-centred care plans. This has been particularly helpful for our residents with advanced dementia, who can now have an assessment completed which automatically links to their care plan, so they have the correct pain plan in place. We love this system and don't know how we would manage without it.
Helping B&M Care see the whole person
B&M Care’s dementia-care model depends on understanding each resident properly. Person Centred Software give B&M Care a clearer way to understand residents, evidence care and respond with more confidence across its homes.