Welcome to Kirsty Meets!
Each month I meet key stake holders and business leaders in the social care sector. This month I met Robert Martin, Managing Director of Care Services at Anchor. Anchor are England’s largest provider of specialist housing and care for people in later life with almost 1,700 locations across the country. As a not-for-profit organisation, Anchor puts people at the heart of their service, be in in residential, dementia, respite or convalescence care.
I caught up with Rob discuss Anchor’s vision for social care and the way investment, acquisition, and providing a real living wage can help tackle some of the sector’s biggest challenges.
So tell us a little about your journey in social care Rob? What inspired you to join the sector?
After leaving school, I served with 40 Regiment in the Royal Artillery for almost seven years, I developed some of my earliest leadership skills in Bosnia as a part of the NATO peacekeeping force and also travelling extensively during this time. I wanted my next move to provide me with an environment where I could work with people making a difference and utilise the core service skills, I had gained working in the military. I looked at the social care sector and found a shared ethos where I could positively impact the health and wellbeing of people every day. One of my first roles was working in care in the North-West of England as a registered manager. It gave me a real sense of purpose, fulfilment, and camaraderie. I felt valued and I made great connections with the people I worked with and cared for. The core skills I gained in that role have been instrumental to my journey in the sector. I have worked in health and social care for over 20 years now and it’s a great sector to work in, you can really make a difference.
And how does Anchor’s approach to care align with your own values?
I am fortunate to have been with Anchor for nearly eight years now, in that time I have been a part of the development of Anchors values, culture and business plan so it is easy to say that our values align incredibly well! We are passionate about helping people enjoy later life, ensuring that they continue to live as independently as possible with a good quality of life. Spending time listening to residents and acting on their feedback is so important, we are a people business, so it is important to listen to views and opinions, something I really enjoy doing. Anchor also recognises the importance of our colleagues, our Anchor values are: Accountable Respectful, Courageous and Honest, they co-exist with one another to be truly effective. I guess living the values makes a big difference and so is very close to my heart. With Anchor it just makes sense.
Spending time listening to residents and acting on their feedback is so important, we are a people business, so it is important to listen to views and opinions
What has informed this approach over the years?
Anchor’s approach is built on nearly 60 years of experience, that means we have many people that have been around for a lot longer than me- their views and experiences are important, we make sure we provide the mechanism for everyone to be heard. We also have a proud history of successful acquisitions, mergers and new builds all of which offers us the opportunity to continue to review how we do things and adapt to changing needs.
What challenges do you anticipate within residential, dementia, respite, and convalescence care in the future?
The greatest challenge in front of us right now is the cost of living, going into this winter with increasing costs will impact our sector, we are well placed with our financial strength but are clearly concerned for the impact on the sector. We are also concerned about what this means for the care workforce- our professionals doing an incredibly important job. We are proud that we pay colleagues the real living wage as a minimum standard and will be looking at what more we can do to support them through this winter period. Also on the horizon is the fair price for care, this has potential to work towards solving many challenges but also comes with great risk if local authorities don’t deliver on the fair price for care, we look forward to hearing more from Government on this and how it will be funded. A further significant challenge involves growing numbers of people living with dementia, but too often, we see a clinical diagnosis of dementia coming too late to enable people who develop the condition and their loved ones to discuss services and housing options.
Additionally, the partnership between housing, health and social care is not sufficiently developed in England and requires significant enhancement particularly in terms of information sharing between services. To ensure the best possible options for the growing number of people living with dementia, as a specialist provider of dementia care, Anchor is pushing forward a number of solutions, one being for Government to move quickly to produce the proposed dementia strategy, which must commit to a shared approach across housing, social care, and the NHS to ensure integrated dementia services can be delivered effectively.
In what ways will Anchor’s approach to care evolve in order to meet the demands posed by such future challenges?
At Anchor we continue to invest in our properties, our services and our ability to deliver in a way that meets residents living with us now and into the future, we have a strong growth plan with acquisitions and purchase of new built care homes to strengthen our service offer.
We are about to open a brand-new care home purpose built with state-of-the-art facilities including many sustainable features such as 400 solar panels, this new home will replace a 30 year old care home less than 0.5miles away in Otley, Yorkshire. All colleagues and residents will move over in October, this is part of our plan towards ensuring Anchor is able to meet future demand in an effective way.
We recognise the importance of innovation in meeting the needs of current and future residents. Our one plan is about using technology to improve the experience of residents, in early 2023 we will be implementing Electronic Care Planning and Electronic Medication Management. We are also looking to use technology to benefit colleagues and residents, one example recently is the introduction of our Sign In app for visitors to our care homes. This was rolled out across our care homes in a three-month period and has reduced the administrative burden on our colleagues by replacing the previous paper sign in process. It is also an important step forward in gaining real time feedback from loved ones and visiting professionals.
We are at the forefront of innovate dementia care and are working on a research project with the Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research, with funding from The Utley Foundation, looking at the power of music and how it benefits people’s wellbeing, particularly those living with dementia.
Maintaining our resident’s physical and mental wellbeing is crucial. Our summer initiative The Anchor Games was held across our care homes to coincide with the 2022 Commonwealth Games as a way for residents to stay active, get involved in team activities and enjoy sporting events going on around the UK.
What is Anchor’s approach to recruitment and retention, given the workforce crisis facing the social care sector?
We recognise that workforce shortages within the social care sector need to be addressed. Failure to tackle it will not just impact the care sector and affect the quality of care provided, it will lead to too many older people becoming reliant on the NHS, requiring longer stays in hospital and further pressure to healthcare services. Anchor is focusing on parity of esteem with the NHS. Despite a welcome boost to interest in working in the social care sector during the COVID-19 pandemic, a career in the NHS continues to be held in higher esteem than social care. We want social care to be recognised as a highly skilled and specialised sector. Care work is not just focused on helping or carrying out essential tasks on behalf of service users, but also focuses on enabling people to live fulfilling lives.
Clearly there are things we can do right now to have an impact, though there is no ‘quick fix’, speaking to a colleague that has worked for well over 30 years in the sector they recall sitting in a brainstorming session right at the start of their career being asked “how are we going to solve this high turnover and recruitment challenge”, so this is not a new problem but it has become more challenging in the last 12 months.
Some steps that we are taking- we recognise that at the heart of tackling workforce shortages, rates of pay in the sector need to increase. In December 2021, we became the first large provider in England to move to paying the ‘real living wage’ as set by the Living Wage Foundation, giving over 4,000 of our care colleagues a pay rise. Along with increasing our rates of pay, Anchor’s apprenticeship programmes are continuing to offer both existing and new colleagues the opportunity to learn new skills and build a successful career in the care sector. Since 2018, over 1,100 new and existing colleagues have taken part in one of our apprenticeship programmes. Furthermore, we also hold regular colleague awards and make sure their hard work is recognised through external initiatives and sector awards.
Recognising the profound contribution of our social care colleagues is crucial to inspiring a new generation of people to join our workforce and shinning a light on the exceptional care we provide. Anchor is clear that through building a strong, skilled, and sustainable workforce, we are well placed to continue to deliver the highest standards of care to our residents.
Care work is not just focused on helping or carrying out essential tasks on behalf of service users, but also on enabling people to live fulfilling lives.
How does the recent acquisition of Halcyon Care Homes and Hadrian Healthcare Homes fit in with Anchor’s vision?
Acquiring Halcyon Care Homes Topco Limited and two further purpose-built homes under construction from Hadrian Healthcare Group, is exciting and represents the next phase of growth in our Business Plan.
The 11-purpose built residential from Halcyon Care Homes Topco Limited, two of which are currently in development, are in the East Midlands and the South of England.
The two freehold residential care homes under construction we have acquired from Hadrian Healthcare are in Yorkshire and will bring the total number of Anchor care homes to 127.
The acquisitions are an excellent opportunity for Anchor to provide more and better homes where people love living in later life. The homes will broaden our provision of care and extend our presence into more areas of the country.
And finally Rob, where can we find out more about Anchor?
You can find out more about the services Anchor provides at www.anchor.org.uk