These guides were put together by My Home Life Cymru with support from Age Cymru. The stories shared are all taken from care homes in Wales.

We have uploaded all of these practice guides to our library.

Social Care Reform Engagement: Opportunity to influence 

On 15^th September 2011, the Government launched Caring for our future: shared ambitions for care and support – an engagement with people who use care and support services, carers, local councils, care providers, and the voluntary sector about the priorities for improving care and support. The engagement exercise will run until 2 December 2011 and the results from the discussions will inform a Government White Paper and a progress report on funding reform that will be published in spring 2012. Further details are available at: www.caringforourfuture.dh.gov.uk. 

Caring for our future will consist of six themes: Quality, Personalisation Shaping local care services, Prevention, Integration (in partnership with NHS Future Forum), and The role of the financial services. 

My Home Life has been asked by Paul Burstow (Minister of State for Care Services) to contribute to the Quality and Workforce Engagement Workstream, which is focusing on how could we improve the quality of care and how could we develop the future workforce to do this?  

Urgent Action Required:

If you and/or your organisation, would like to engage in this work and influence future policy, please read the Caring for our Future leaflet for more details.  Feedback can be given on-line (http://caringforourfuture.dh.gov.uk/category/priorities/), or by using the Caring for Our Future feedback form, which can be emailed to: caringforourfuture@dh.gsi.gov.uk or by post to: Caring for our future, Area 117, Wellington House, 133-155 Waterloo Road, London, SE1 8UG

Please note that the deadline for written comments is 2 December 2011.

Caring for our future leaflet (PDF, 125K)

Caring for our future feedback (PDF, 323K)

You are invited to attend a seminar on the subject;

Centre for Better Managed Health and Social Care - opportunity to influence White Paper

Caring for our future: Quality and workforce

How could we improve the quality of care and how could we develop the future workforce to do this?

Chair: Imelda Redmond

http://caringforourfuture.dh.gov.uk/
at 18.30pm (Registration from 18.00pm) on the 28th of November at Cass Business School, London

106 Bunhill Row, London, EC1Y 8TZ

The seminar will be focusing the discussion around the following 4 questions in order that we can inform the attached engagement exercise “Caring for Our Future” (Quality and Workforce theme)

• What does great care look like?
• How is this delivered?
• What is the role of the workforce?
• What are the levers for achieving this?

 To book a place, please email  shivani.patel.1@city.ac.uk

This story was kindly sent in by Maura Horan, Director of Nursing, Mowlam Healthcare

We are a 54 bedded Private Nursing Home on the west coast of Ireland and located just 8 miles from Galway City.

The scene was set. The day had come and a democratic decision was made to get the home its first egg producing hens and save some poor birds from their otherwise short life to the pot.

Continue reading Residents set up their own farm

In the last eighteen months, the My Home Life Wiltshire programme has been focussing on the best practice theme of Leadership.

A group of eleven care home managers has been funded by Wiltshire Council and NHS Wiltshire to take part in a leadership programme, designed to develop the skills needed to support the culture change that underpins My Home Life. The programme has been a great success and the Council will now be working in partnership with these managers to co-develop and co-deliver My Home Life workshops to other care homes across Wiltshire. These workshops are designed to share the skills needed to integrate other best practice themes into the day to day culture of care homes.

Continue reading Leadership The Focus in Wiltshire