Navigating the Cost of Living Crisis Without a Cost to Care Standards

By Fiona Hale, Managing Director of CoolCare (www.coolcare.co.uk)

Sadly, we are all too familiar with hearing that our care sector is under pressure and that we are facing a challenging time as predictions point towards a recession. At a time when we have 165,000 unfilled vacancies across social care, and staff retention is as much of a focus as recruitment, we are also facing higher costs for energy and essentials that aid us in delivering the care that residents need. Now more than ever, we need solutions that can save both time and money, reducing the admin workload of stretched staff and helping budgets go a little bit further.

As in many other areas of our modern lives, technology has a big part to play in helping to navigate the cost of living crisis without compromising standards of care. Care home administration software has the ability, and potential, to benefit care providers at all levels of the organisation but especially care home managers and carers. Where the needs of residents are paramount, solutions to saving time and costs need to be found elsewhere in the care home environment, and one area where few would argue would be in reducing the administrative burden.

The adage ‘time is money’ can feel overused but it still rings as true now as when it was coined. While we all find ways to make budgets go that little bit further, saving time can be a highly effective way to achieve this. Utilising software capabilities to streamline the workload frees up staff to focus on the delivery of care instead of time-consuming admin. Automation within software can also make normally time intensive tasks such as filling gaps in the rota much quicker.[FH2] It’s easy to underestimate how much time can be saved as each individual saving seems so small, but taken together, shortening these repetitive tasks can have big implications. Direct messaging of staff from the rota, for example, is saving CoolCare customers about 11 hours per month alone – that’s nearly 1.5 admin days per month per care home. Identifying these gaps earlier also prevents the need for emergency staffing from agencies which can come at a premium – stressing already tight budgets.

From a business perspective, ensuring that care providers’ time aren’t monopolised by admin makes a lot of sense. Staffing is one of the biggest investments and costs for any business so having technology in place that helps them to perform their role more effectively is a wise investment on its own. Where care home management software can automate and reduce admin, carers have more time to spend with residents, helping to deliver compliant staffing requirements. If a member of the team needs to spend hours in an office on admin tasks, then additional team members are needed to ensure compliance, adding extra cost to a shift which could otherwise be used to help with energy and food costs.

The cost of living crisis is not only affecting care home staff at work. Where home financial pressures are mounting, the stress can make it hard to focus fully on work, no matter how hard an employee tries. Capabilities and integrations within care home administration software to enable earned wage access give staff the ability to use their pay in a flexible way which works for them and their own financial situation. Having access to forward rotas and vacant shifts also allows them to pick up additional work and money when needed. Supporting staff through the crisis is also of benefit to staff retention, encouraging them to stay with the business and ensure standards of care are maintained for residents long-term, and avoiding the need for recruitment in the midst of a staffing crisis.

Technology has a key role to play in helping the care sector navigate the current financial climate. Whether that’s through reducing the admin burden, streamlining roles or offering greater staff flexibility and benefits. However, it’s just as important to tackle the challenges together, enabling staff to feel supported in their roles so that we weather the storm together and continue to deliver exceptional care.

Fiona Hale is the Managing Director of CoolCare. Centred on admin made easy, its services are aimed at making operating care homes easier, more efficient and more profitable.

Following three decades of care home administration software development, CoolCare knows what good looks like – and it seeks to help care homes love their admin by making it simple. Its intuitive design drives higher staff confidence and increases the impact of digital adoption, while CoolCare’s user-friendliness is legendary, making it the software of choice for some of the UK’s leading care home operators.