Cleeve Lodge: Ending the use of paper-based training with digitalisation

Cleeve Lodge is an extended Victorian house, offering two floors of accommodation for elderly residents in need of 24 hour care. They provide holistic and individualised care for 22 residents over the age of 65.

“The time and money investment at the beginning of the project comes back 10-fold.”

Director, Cleeve Lodge, Berkshire.

Starting Point

“We purchased a care home and took operational control in June 2023. We inherited a paper-based training system that had been in place for years. It took a long time to understand how accurate the records were and to establish the status of the training compliance.

The inherited system required staff to complete workbooks, which were time consuming. Any staff that struggled with the content through lack of understanding, reading and writing or, English not being their first language, were mentored one to one by the Office Manager, which was manageable, but far from ideal.

The administration of the previous training system was also paper based, which meant that not only was it a constant challenge to maintain, but it was also vulnerable to fire and water damage. The records were held centrally in the office and therefore would sometimes slow down critical decisions through lack of access to the storage and files. We soon realised that we needed to evolve the training to a digital format.”

The Solution

“We set out plans to purchase a digital, robust, learning management system that would improve the efficiency of our training and offer us live, global data to base decisions on. Having shopped around and looked at different systems we opted for eBox from Redcrier.”

“eBox support team at Redcrier have been brilliant throughout.”

The Outcome

“Access via the App has reduced the barriers for staff to complete training.
The voice over combined with the translation tool within the system is extremely helpful. These additional features allow staff, that might have otherwise needed help from the Office Manager with their training, to work through the relevant courses, giving them more control over their responsibility to train. Which in turn released the Office Manager from their training support role, allowing them more time to focus on other areas of the business.

Push reminders take the pressure off managers. The data within the system allows us to plan for our training well ahead of time. One to one’s become more productive. The data paints a complete picture of an individual’s progress and areas of strength and weakness. The data is live and available globally, allowing us to improve the ways in which we support the staff and be more proactive.

Whenever you change a process within your care home, there is a learning curve. Some staff did struggle with the IT element initially but have now got to grips with it. We selected our Deputy Manager to deploy the new system as they are very capable and used to supporting the staff. But what we found was that the Deputy was placed under a great amount of pressure with the additional tasks and added responsibility. What happened was that the younger members of staff relished helping those struggling with the IT and we discovered a team of ‘champions’ previously underutilised. The team bonding through this learning curve was great to witness, and empowered people to go above and beyond. The eBox support team at Redcrier have been brilliant throughout. They have given us lots of time and really helped us and our team to transition from the paper-based training to the digital eBox.
After launching eBox we also noticed that the induction process becomes much easier. Carers become competent more quickly and more effectively.

The instant access to the admin controls helps us to be more responsive. Like many care providers we have suffered with Covid. We used eBox to quickly assign everyone Infection Prevention and Control and rolled the course out, getting staff to complete it in a short space of time. Since then, our Infection control standards have improved dramatically, our client’s wellbeing has increased, and therefore they have better outcomes.”