Case study

Royal Star & Garter has supported veterans living with disability or dementia for more than 100 years. The charity began in 1916 to care for injured military personnel returning from the First World War, and today provides care and therapy services across three homes, with a fourth on the way.

Its teams are highly skilled, compassionate and used to working with complex care needs. That makes staffing decisions especially important. The right mix of people needs to be in the right place at the right time, with clear evidence behind every decision.

Royal Star & Garter was already using PCS Care (formerly mCare) to manage care records. The next step was finding a better way to understand dependency, plan staffing and support consistent decision-making across its homes. PCS Resource (formerly DepenSys) gave the team that clearer view.

The challenge

Royal Star & Garter wanted a more consistent way to calculate dependency and plan staffing across its homes. The team was using a mix of Excel spreadsheets to manage staffing and dependency information. The spreadsheets helped to a point, but they did not give the depth, consistency or confidence the charity needed as expectations around staffing evidence increased.

Local authorities were also asking more detailed questions about how dependency was calculated. Saying "we know our residents" or pointing to a spreadsheet was no longer enough. The team needed something more solid, especially when staffing decisions could affect compliance, funding conversations, recruitment plans and the safe running of each home.

The solution

Royal Star & Garter needed a clearer way to understand resident dependency and use that information to plan staffing with confidence. PCS Resource gave the team one place to assess each resident’s level of need, calculate the care hours required and evidence why staffing decisions had been made. Because Royal Star & Garter already used PCS Care, the process became easier: resident information could pull through from PCS Care into PCS Resource, helping the team avoid double entry and work from care data they already trusted.

GP Connect also helped by bringing key medical information into PCS Care before a resident moved in, giving staff a stronger starting point for dependency planning.

Turning care knowledge into staffing evidence

PCS Resource helped Royal Star & Garter bring more structure to decisions that were previously based on a mix of experience, judgement and spreadsheet work. The tool helps teams calculate resident dependency and understand when and where staffing is needed most. For managers, that means decisions carry more weight because they are backed by data.

This does not remove the human side of care planning. It gives experienced care teams a clearer way to evidence what they already know from working closely with residents every day. It also helped the homes work more consistently. Each home is expected to keep PCS Resource updated, which means leaders can compare patterns, share learning and understand changes in dependency across the charity.

Supporting funding and compliance conversations

Dependency data has become a stronger part of Royal Star & Garter’s external conversations. The team can use PCS Resource to evidence higher levels of resident need, support fee discussions and provide clearer information for local authority funding conversations. Instead of relying on broad explanations, managers can show the level of support being provided and the staffing needed to deliver it safely.

That same evidence supports compliance. When local authorities ask how dependency is calculated, the team can show the work behind the decision. PCS Resource helps Royal Star & Garter demonstrate that it has identified areas for improvement, taken action and built a clearer process around staffing and care provision.

Kelda Fasasi, Head of Innovation at Royal Star & Garter, explains it simply: “providing care is only part of the job. You also need to show how you are doing it.”

Reducing agency reliance

PCS Resource has also helped Royal Star & Garter make better use of its existing staff. By showing when and where staffing is needed, the tool helped teams see where agency cover had been brought in unnecessarily. That gave managers a better understanding of staff mix, resource planning and where people were best placed across the home.

For a not-for-profit charity, that matters. Financial stability is important, but so is protecting continuity of care. Reducing unnecessary agency use helps with both. The data gave Royal Star & Garter more confidence to plan staffing around resident need, rather than reacting under pressure.

What improved

Together, the PCS systems help the charity make better decisions around staffing, recruitment, quality, safety, funding and compliance. The team can see where support is needed, explain why staffing decisions have been made and make better use of the people already in the home. For a charity built around specialist, compassionate care for veterans, that evidence matters. It helps protect quality, support staff and keep residents’ needs at the centre of every staffing decision.