Annual Plan

Iris Care Group

Foreword

By Our Chair/CEO

I am pleased to present our first Group Annual Plan which reflects on our achievements during 2023/24 and lays out our key aims and objectives for 2024/25.

Iris Care Group was formed in May 2023 through the merger of two sets of highly committed, expert teams and specialist services previously known as Ludlow Street Healthcare and Holmleigh Care Homes. I am very proud of the progress made during this first twelve months and am confident that the teams we have shaped, and continue to develop, will rise to meet the challenges facing our sector.

The key themes of our Annual Plan will draw on our underlying core Vision and Values. Given the sector in which we operate, all aspects of work will also be underpinned by the principles of good governance, putting our people (whether the people we support or our teams) at the heart of everything that we do and prioritising quality and safety.

We will continue to develop and maintain strong partnerships with our regulators and commissioners and, through this, aim to continuously improve our services for the benefit of all those we support.

It is clear that the coming year will be equally, if not more, challenging in terms of employee recruitment and retention and continued financial challenges in the sector. It is, therefore, essential that we continue to invest in employee rewards and benefits, training. listening to and engaging with everyone, as well as delivering services which are effective and a high quality for the people we support and provide value for money to those who purchase our services.

I firmly believe that we have the teams and the capabilities which will carry us forward.

Peter Kinsey Chair / CEO

Who are we and what do we do?

Your Iris Care Group Directors are:

At Iris Care Group we provide the full pathway of services for people with learning disabilities, Autism, mental health issues and personality disorders, along with neurodegenerative conditions and Acquired Brain Injury. We operate across South Wales and South West England through a total of 54 services, supporting nearly 500 people with a staff team of just over 1,600 people.

Our domiciliary care, supported living and residential services enable people to live more independent, meaningful lives in their communities Whilst our specialist hospitals provide assessment, care and treatment. Our Special Educational Needs college provides residential and day placements to young people and adults.

Our multidisciplinary teams are able to operate across all service areas to provide dedicated therapeutic care as required.

We take pride in offering safe, compassionate and empowering care and support in dedicated settings.

Our collective achievements

2023/2024

2023 was a very busy year for us, bringing together two distinct organisations to form Iris Care Group and beginning to define our shared culture, Vision and Values. We have introduced a number of new organisational systems to enhance the productivity of the group, ensuring we are fit for the future.

We successfully completed the merger of two separate organisations: Holmleigh Care Homes and Ludlow Street Healthcare.

We created new posts of Group People Director, Group Commercial Director and Group Chief Financial Officer to join the Clinical Director and Operations Directors to form a strong new Executive Team of skilled and experienced people who, collectively, take responsibility and accountability for Iris Care Group.

We reviewed and restructured a number of our central departments to better support service delivery.

We have redesigned the Iris Care Group website, and rebranded and redeveloped our social media platforms and all our other marketing collateral

We have kept pay and benefits under review and introduced a number of new employee benefits and systems; including Wagestream and Recognise Me.

We have actively sought to be an enabling, listening and engaging organisation. We now have active Employee Forums in all areas of the business, and a dedicated monthly briefing through which we communicate key business messages. An annual Employee Survey and staff exit interviews are now complemented by quarterly mini surveys, all of which help inform the ongoing organisational development.

We have a dedicated Wellbeing Officer who is shaping and enhancing our wellbeing support offer for our teams.

We have strengthened internal and external mechanisms for people to share their concerns. This includes: Caldicott Guardian, Freedom to Speak Up Guardian, and an external, confidential whistleblowing helpline.

We were successful in a number of regional and national awards. Most notably; Peter Kinsey Social Care Top 30 Leader winner, Michelle Cox-Coley Outstanding Contribution to Social Care and Front Line Leader Award in the Great British Care Awards. We had winners and finalists in nearly a dozen national and local awards, and were delighted to see staff across a wide range of care and therapy roles recognised for their great wor, dedication, and achievements.

We have enhanced measures through which the people we support also have a voice, developing an active Whispers Forum in Iris England and associated groups within our services.

We held our inaugural Christmas Party and Employee Awards event which was hugely enjoyable and successful.

We have invested significantly in improving the physical environments in our services and people’s homes.

We have increased the financial viability of our services through increased occupancy, appropriate fee uplifts and better financial management across the group.

We have developed a growth plan to respond to the increasing demand for services which support very complex people who find it difficult to live with others. This has commenced with the development of new flats at Pinetree Hospital, the purchase of two new properties to take forward the Ocean Community Services (OCS) model as well as plans for developments in England.

We have started to develop and deliver our new Leadership Development Programme.

We have developed a new Workforce Strategy and Recruitment Plan with increased events and initiatives completed.

We have commenced the implementation of our workforce management system, Softworks.

We have Introduced our new electronic care management system, Nourish.

We have implemented a new Customer Relationship Management system to help us work more effectively with our customers and manage referrals better.

We have developed a suite of consolidated financial policies, processes and controls.

What are our goals?

2024/2025

Iris Care Group strives to be a recognised leader in the field of adult health and social care, especially for those with more complexity and need.

We have over 25 years of expertise in supporting some of the most complex people in the country and in successfully supporting individuals with a range of diverse needs to live great lives. We want to build on this expertise by developing more services that respond to the needs of the people being referred to us and the changing demand in the sector. In particular, we want to create more high-quality individual, bespoke flats in both our existing and new services.

We want to raise the profile of Iris Care Group so that we increase the recognition of the excellent work that our staff do every day in managing complex and often intensely challenging behaviours. We also want to showcase the clinical expertise of the organisation.

A priority for us will be to build on the high quality of the services that we already provide through continuous service improvement audits involving those we support as experts by experience. We want to enhance the training and development for our teams to ensure the best support is provided. In particular we want to focus on the people we support engaging in meaningful activity and achieving great outcomes.

We want to develop the work we have already started through the people we support forums, such as the Whispers group, so that those we support have a strong voice across the organisation.

we have started to enhance our communications and want to be a listening organisation, involving our staff in shaping the work we do and our future direction. Our staff teams will be a central focus, developing our wellbeing and retention initiatives as well as staff training and leadership development.

We will continue to improve our systems to make sure we are using technology to enhance the quality of what we do.

The longer-term viability of the Iris Care Group is paramount and, to this end, we will strengthen, where necessary, existing governance mechanisms and scrutinise every penny that we spend.

Our Staff Teams

Drive employee engagement via surveys, benchmarking Iris Care Group, and making incremental increases in satisfaction as well as further embedding an open learning culture.

Continue to refine and rollout Leadership and Management Development Programmes, including a focus on CPD and behavioural awareness.

We will scope the viability of increasing the number of events we hold, particularly focussing on those for Support Workers.

Where possible, we will invite subject matter experts in to speak at our events.

Further enhance our wellbeing offering and make this more inclusive and to support and promote good mental health.

Continue to review employee wellbeing and benefits and will consider widening these by scoping out the viability of, for example, an Annual Leave Buy & Sell scheme.

Engage with external partners in order to enhance our recruitment capabilities.

Strengthen our sponsorship recruitment activities.

Maximise the use of Recognise Me as this is a visual and inclusive way of recognising employees.

Develop succession and career pathways internally.

Build a suite of workforce analytics which can be used to guide organisational decisions.

The People We Support

Design and deliver the Iris Care Group Annual Employee Awards and Christmas event.

Enter our staff into national awards to recognise the great work we do.

Establish an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion strategy supported by networks.

Continue to build on our communication strategy to ensure that everybody has a voice and that those voices, whether individual or collective, are heard.

Focus on recognising the work that teams and individuals do through our monthly briefings and quarterly newsletters as well as Viva Engage

Accelerate the rollout of Softworks across the Group.

Development of a Nurse Strategy to enhance our recruitment and retention of nursing staff. Including specialist roles, CPD and networking, opportunities for support staff to complete their nurse training and student nurse placements and the Nurse Associate role.

Continue to embed our Active Support models and develop our Active Support training modules.

Continue to focus on reducing Restrictive Interventions across all our services.

Look to develop the involvement of people we support in the running of the services and increased involvement in recruitment, training and sharing of experiences within the organisation as a whole.

Our Purchasers

Hold our first celebration event and awards for the people we support.

Enhance measurable social inclusion opportunities.

Development of outcome measure tools to evidence progress and achievements of those we support.

Continued commitment to improving people’s home environments.

Develop bespoke and capable environments to support those with the most complex needs.

Share best practice to enhance the quality of lives for others.

Raise the profile of Iris Care Group to maximise customer engagement and exceed occupancy targets.

Grow and develop new services to support more people through our excellent operational and clinical models.

Grow our services that support those with complex needs through our specialisms.

Work in partnership with our commissioners and referrers to deliver demand led, high quality services that represent value for money.

Hold our first conference for commissioners.

Ensure our services are ‘fit for the future’ in line with the new Welsh Five Year Strategy.

Showcase success stories with commissioners and decision makers to evidence outcome delivery.

Our Organisation

Develop our systems to enhance our technical capabilities to more efficiently support the organisation through Nourish, Softworks, NetSuite, and any other suitable systems.

Implement improved IT systems and equipment to support the use of these systems.

To implement improved financial and budgetary monitoring and control procedures.

Explore the use of AI to enhance our service offerings.

To improve environmental sustainability through initiatives such as recycling to reduce landfill waste, utility efficiencies, and replace vehicles with eco-friendly vehicles.

Achieve regulatory ratings of Good or above across all services.

Continue to embed person-centred, evidence-based care and outcome measures thorough RISE, Recovering Quality of Life Measure (ReQol), Active Support and Building Better Lives.

Ensuring that reflective practice and awareness of the risks to compassion of working with complex people are part of the supervision conversation.

Ensuring that ‘Safety 2” is in all service action plans.

Our Quality

Initiate an Iris Care Group research group to manage and develop research that can be used externally to showcase our expertise.

Reporting outcome measures in all services on patients’ experiences of the care they receive and their care outcomes; as well as service-related outcomes and the experiences of services, such as the culture and quality of care.

Develop the organisation’s reputation as safety exemplar service focusing on our expert management of high risk.

Development of experts by experience to enhance and further develop quality of support and internal quality measures.