How Can Care Homes Track Training and Competency Digitally?

Training and competency are mandatory for all care teams in the UK - and for good reason. Delivering safe and high-quality care depends on skilled staff which comes from regular training and hands-on competency practice. It’s especially important as care needs become more complex with people arriving into care later on in life with more advanced medical requirements as well as people living longer and care teams being stretched across their patients.

In the UK, care homes are bound by certain authorities to keep their team’s training and competency up to date. In England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent body that regulates health and social care. Under its guidance, Section 18 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 requires care homes to have “sufficient numbers of suitably qualified, competent, skilled and experienced persons” where they must “receive such appropriate support, training, professional development, supervision and appraisal as is necessary to enable them to carry out the duties they are employed to perform.”

In Scotland, it’s the Care Inspectorate and Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) who regulate care team training. In Wales, it’s the Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) who set out mandatory training and competency tracking under the Regulation and Inspection of Social Care (Wales) Act 2016. And, in Northern Ireland, it’s the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RIQA) who regulate training and competency standards which are defined under the Health and Personal Social Services (Quality, Improvement and Regulation) (Northern Ireland) Order 2003.

In a digital world, paper records can quickly become a challenge. While it may be easy to grab a piece of paper and pen and file training away, it’s the retrieval of data for audit and compliance which can make things tricky.

There’s always the possibility that records get lost and trawling through years of paperwork doesn’t make it easy to find which of your staff is trained and competent. That can cause stress for your inspections and especially if you realise that you’ve missed a training renewal or that someone has a gap in their education. Digital training and competency tracking can help on all of these issues, save you time and also proactively prompt you when training is due.

Here’s how digital training and competency tracking can give you confidence that your teams are skilled, compliant and supported.

Digital training and competency tracking for care homes is not just about compliance - though that’s a big part of it. It’s about having digital staff training and workforce competency management that works for you. What we mean by this is keeping your operation efficient, so you can work on the things that matter most to you.

A management software for digital training and competency tracking will centralise digital records of your team’s training and skills, including any role-based competency requirements. Stored this way, training will be easy to look up and can give real-time overall visibility to managers and leadership teams about their staff’s education.

Digital systems track training effectively because they provide clear overviews of training by role which allows you to see education dates, compliance and gaps in knowledge. These systems also allow you to add digital evidence to support training, like certificates, sign-offs and assessments, as well as providing automated expiry alerts and training reminders. It tracks competency in skills too, not just attendance.

Digitalising your training and competency also means that you can approach team training differently. Rather than a one-off tick box exercise, it becomes an ongoing review where strengths, weaknesses and extra evidence can be added along the way.



Supporting compliance and inspection readiness

The path to compliance could not be easier with digital team training and competency tracking. It creates clear audit trails which are much simpler to collate and allows you to add evidence which is aligned to regulatory requirements. All of this helps you to demonstrate the continuous development of your staff.



Single homes vs multi-site care groups

This software can also help when you’re running multiple care sites. You get centralised oversight and standardised training which provides you with group-level reporting and insight. But this doesn’t take away from your sites’ own accountability. They continue to be responsible for training their site staff and meeting health care requirements.

It’s a good idea to look for a system which is specific to the care industry. That way, you’ll have the right modules to complete and store your teams regulatory approved training and competency. Here’s what else you might think about:

• A system which can integrate with your current care and rostering software
• Software which can scale as your organisation grows
• In-built secure and compliant data handling
• An easy-to-use system for frontline staff

See how digital training and competency tracking can give you confidence that your teams are skilled, compliant and supported.