Not-for-profit care provider, WCS Care, has launched an Innovation Hub designed to share ideas, technology and practices that improve the wellbeing of care home residents and staff. The first of its kind in the UK, WCS Care's Innovation Hub was officially opened at a launch event earlier this month and was attended by professionals from across the social care sector and the media.
The Innovation Hub is located at WCS Care's Castle Brook care home in Kenilworth, Warwickshire and welcomes visitors from other care services seeking to implement new and innovative ways to deliver effective care. Care operators can visit the Hub to discover the latest technology and concepts that WCS Care uses or is about to use in future developments.
About WCS Care
WCS Care is an independent, not-for-profit care provider that seeks to find different and innovative ways to provide effective care. The organisation began operating over 25 years ago with a philosophy that puts people at the heart of everything they do. Today, WCS is the first care provider in the UK that has six services with outstanding ratings from the CQC.
WCS Care acknowledges that everyone is different and what matters to their care homes' residents has to be priority in what matters to them. Perhaps the most effective part of the charity's model is that they do not try to make things extraordinary, they seek to find realistic, common-sense ideas that genuinely improve care. They are the sort of ideas that could be implemented in every care home and WCS Care's desire to improve social care in the UK means they're all too willing to share these ideas.
"As the only care home provider in England to have six Outstanding ratings from the CQC, people are looking to us to see what we’re doing and how we’ve achieved what we have."
Christine Asbury - CEO of WCS Care
WCS Care specialise in residential care and dementia care. Their newest build care home, Castle Brook, has lots of innovative ideas integrated into the design and day-to-day running of the facility. The WCS Care Innovation Hub is an area of the Castle Brook home that provides a place for like-minded innovators to come together and share ideas and solutions that improve quality of care. Other care providers can visit the hub and tour the home to see ideas in action.
Find out more about WCS Care on their website
The WCS Care Innovation Hub
In their own words, WCS Care uses a range of products and services, which, when combined with a values-based approach to care help to ensure that residents receive the best possible levels of care.
At Castle Brook, the charity's new care home in Kenilworth, WCS has implemented a range of innovative ideas, tools, systems and approaches that improve care for residents, staff and visitors. WCS have partnered with like-minded innovators and technology developers in the industry to implement their own ideas and those of others to create a first class care environment that ensures maximum quality of life for residents. Implementations include:
- Electronic care planning which provides household, home and group reporting.
- A range of facilities including a cinema, hairdresser and a grocery store where residents can maintain a weekly routine.
- Double apartments where couples can live together privately whilst still receiving 24-hour care.
- A traditional launderette where residents can take their washing and carers are still very much a part of the hub-bub of the home.
- An outdoor cycle track with a bicycle for two that enables a carer to ride with a resident.
"We’ve already incorporated many of the concepts and technologies that are in the Hub into a number of our homes and have seen the positive impact they’ve had on the health and wellbeing of people living with dementia."
Ed Russell - Director of Innovation and Delivery at WCS Care
As England's first care home provider to have six homes recognised as outstanding by the Care Quality Commission, WCS Care are often looked to by other providers as a source of inspiration. The Innovation Hub at Castle Brook gives WCS and their innovation partners the opportunity to share and showcase systems and ideas with other providers in a real-life setting. The Hub also enables WCS and partners to try new innovations before rolling them out across care facilities.
We are an innovation partner
Opera is a proud innovation partner at the WCS Care Innovation Hub. As an organisation, we put a lot of hard work into creating design-led equipment that improves care for service users and facilitates nurses/carers in delivering outstanding care. Our Opera® range of beds and mattresses are used throughout the Castle Brook care home and contribute greatly to the home's ambience and ability to provide outstanding care.
Testament to our efforts in innovation and positively affecting the way care is provided, WCS approached us to join a select few partners at the Innovation Hub. Operators from other care providers who visit Castle Brook and the Innovation Hub can experience the following as a result of our innovation partnership:
- See our Opera® Classic profiling beds manufactured in custom wood colours in action in a real-life care setting.
- Discuss the clinical benefits of Opera® beds with the actual carers and operators who use them.
- Discover the homely designs of the beds and the positive addition they are to a care environment.
- Visit the Innovation Hub to get hands on with our Opera® ProSafe all-in-one profiling bed (now discontinued - view all Opera Profiling Beds).
Fit-out project of WCS Castle Brook care home
Castle Brook is an apartment-style care home that provides state-of-the-art care and accommodation including 84 bedrooms, lounge and dining areas, recreational spaces and outdoor gardens and balconies. The home provides 24-hour residential and dementia care but not at the expense of a warm and homely lifestyle facility that is centred around resident wellbeing.
Opera provided profiling beds and pressure care mattresses for the Castle Brook home and the Opera® range's balance of advanced clinical features and elegant design proved to be a perfect fit for WCS Care. We manufactured the Opera® Classic profiling beds in a custom, WCS-specified wood colour and installed all the equipment into the Castle Brook home.
Castle Brook’s apartment-style layout incorporates double suites where couples can live together privately whilst still receiving 24-hour care. The Opera® Classic beds' flexibility means they can be used as single or double beds without sacrificing clinical functions, as shown below.
Visit the Innovation Hub
The WCS Care Innovation Hub is open to visitors who wish to discover new ideas and see innovative systems in action. Contact WCS Head Office to book your tour. T: 01926 864 242 E: info@wcs-care.co.uk
