Care Providers

Case study: Ashberry Healthcare

We recently spoke with the Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry, Shaun Lock, about how they transformed their quality and compliance processes with digital methods, and how in doing so they have been able to centralise and automate audits, easily track, and evidence progress, and drive continuous improvement.

Shaun is in the unique position of seeing and using our product from both ends. He previously worked for another partner of ours as a Care Home Manager, where he used the system regularly in his role. Now, with Ashberry, he uses Radar Healthcare daily to monitor and manage all quality and compliance processes.

Ashberry has six care homes in total across the UK, with plans to grow soon. Four homes are in England and two are in Wales. The organisation prides itself on offering supportive, respectful, personalised, and safe care; Radar Healthcare’s software is one of the ways that Ashberry regulates, showcases, and achieves this.

Summary of success:

Ashberry replaced multiple paper-based methods with one centralised solution, making them more compliant and better positioned for inspections.
With the support of their Radar Healthcare Project Manager, Jack Forshaw, the team was up and running with Incidents and Events in just 20 days.
Fully onboarded by week 5 – a couple of weeks ahead of schedule.
Ashberry has saved money and time by reducing the need for frequent in-person compliance visits.

“If I had to rate Radar Healthcare out of 10, it would be a 10 – absolutely, with no doubt about it. I would strongly recommend Radar Healthcare to any healthcare organisation.”

Shaun Lock, Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry

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Out with the old and in with the new

Before Radar Healthcare, Ashberry was using paper-based methods to complete its quality and compliance processes. On average, the individual care homes were completing 15-20 audits monthly on paper. The paper-based approach led to many challenges with visibility and accessibility across teams and the opportunity to communicate efficiently on learnings.

Shaun said, “During the pandemic, we were physically unable to go into a care home and see audits and action plans and we had no external governance for those systems. From this, we realised there was a real need for a solution that we could all access and view from afar and monitor what people were doing – but also, off the back of that, implement action plans and see how they were actually progressing.”

The need for change became more apparent during the pandemic when the Compliance team was unable to physically visit care homes to oversee governance checks. Now, Ashberry has a digital hub that acts as their one source of truth that they can evidence all governance and compliance – and even go that one step further.

Shaun continues, “One of the criticisms we have had from past inspections was that, yes, we had audits but where are the action plans and evidence of how we are continuing to work towards those actions to improve and how do you monitor from a distance? And at that moment in time, we couldn’t do that. Now, with Radar Healthcare this is easily achieved.”

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Driving success and seeing results with an innovative solution

Previously, Ashberry was criticised by the CQC (Care Quality Commission) and other regulating bodies for its lack of governance and ability to evidence compliance effectively and consistently in some of their care homes, so the need for a flexible and innovative solution was essential.

“Prior to Radar Healthcare, we had a very poor CQC inspection. The concerns were primarily around governance and documentation. We have yet to have another CQC inspection, however, when the local authority came to review, we were able to provide them with a digital source that evidenced all documents, up-to-date audits, incidents, and ongoing actions, which they were really pleased to see. They were impressed that we were pinpointing issues but then automatically creating action plans and steps to resolve them efficiently and effectively - and that is exactly what Radar Healthcare’s system allows you to evidence and continue to do.”

Shaun Lock, Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry

Ashberry has since made use of the many modules in Radar Healthcare to improve its service and increase business-wide safety for the benefit of its customers and employees.

Our Action and Improvement Plans, Auditing, Document Management, and Incident and Event Management, allow Ashberry full insight into its compliance processes and give a clearer understanding of performance in each area. By cleverly linking each of these modules together, the team is presented with end-to-end oversight and increased communication of all activity at their fingertips.

“We have an extraordinarily strong governance system now in place, which we did not have before. And when I say governance, it is external governance as well as internal. So being able to log in and track and see what progress is taking place and uptake information easily is brilliant for us.”

Shaun Lock, Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry

In addition to this, Shaun and the team were especially impressed with the flexibility of the product. With regulations changing so quickly, they needed something that could be agile to their current needs and wants, helping them always stay ahead of the game.

Shaun says, “As time progresses, we have a weekly managers’ meeting, and we are always tweaking questions or reworking questions that no longer are fit for purpose. Radar Healthcare allows us to quickly update the audits and amend them to fit the current needs, which is extremely useful. It is a valuable tool.”

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Weeks and days ahead of schedule

Jack Forshaw, Project Manager at Radar Healthcare, worked closely with Shaun and the rest of the Ashberry team to support them to implement the software quickly, as well as understand their needs to help drive better business outcomes.

Ashberry was up and running with our incidents and events management module after 20 days and by week 5 was fully onboarded and collecting data.

“Our Project Manager, Jack, was fantastic. We had weekly support calls and on and off of those he was extremely helpful, quick to respond, and easily accessible throughout the onboarding process – and because of this, alongside my previous knowledge of the product, we were able to implement the software ahead of schedule.”

Shaun Lock, Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry

The Ashberry team now has been assigned their own personal Customer Success Manager who helps them achieve targets, offers advice, and ensures that they get the most out of the software.

Saving valuable time and money through the power of data

Radar Healthcare’s system collects enough evidence and data to understand how things are progressing, reducing the need to physically visit each care home as often, saving valuable time and money. The increased oversight and visibility offer reassurance and prove that the care homes are compliant and actioning improvements.

Shaun says, “We have care homes all over the UK, so commuting can be very time-consuming and expensive. By law, we must visit, but what we have actually found is that our monthly compliance visits now have become so thorough we don’t need to physically visit the homes as often as we did before.

For example, I am visiting a care home next month to do compliance checks and assessments, but then the month after it will be a much smaller action-based audit and catch-up because we are collecting so much data and information using the system. So, we have been able to reduce the number of visits monthly, which has saved us commuting time and is more cost-effective.

And as we grow, we are hopefully looking to open another home, so this spare time will help us manage our time across the different homes much better moving forward.”

What’s next?

The future is looking bright for Ashberry! After six months of using the product, Ashberry has already seen remarkable success with its auditing, incident and event management, document management, and action and improvement plans modules.

The next step is to implement Workforce Compliance to have better oversight of employees’ training, appraisals, supervisions, and compliance requirements.

“Workforce Compliance is a new module we want to implement and make use of. Having better insight into our employees’ needs and knowing where additional support and training are needed will be useful. However, we use Radar Healthcare every day and as we move forward, we plan to continue to develop how we are using it and add new components, to make sure we are always ahead of the game and improving our services.”

Shaun Lock, Quality and Compliance Manager at Ashberry

Both Ashberry and Radar Healthcare are extremely pleased with the progress that they are making – and together we continue to look for new and innovative ways to continue to improve their service and offer support.