The care exchange from Skills for Care

Kindness is a superpower

Dawn Stott, a consultant specialising in kindness, resilience, and ethical leadership, discusses the importance of fostering a kind and supportive work culture.  

 

She emphasises the importance of integrating kindness into organisational culture, particularly in recruitment, and using culture questionnaires to tailor training. She is a huge advocate for self-care, mentorship, and psychological safety to foster a supportive work environment. Dawn also talks about her five pillars of kindness which are GREAT - generosity, respect, empathy, action, and trust which are crucial for building resilient, empathetic teams. 

 

Resources:

• Culture toolkit
• RM webinar: Leading Induction for a positive workplace culture 

• Registered manager membership, mentoring offer  

   

S5 E8: I love audits

Hear from Adam Purnell, a Quality Assurance Manager at Bayswood Care Home who explains the importance of his role in ensuring compliance with regulations and improving care quality. He shares why knowing the regulations are so vital and how making actions SMART drives real change. He stresses the need for managers to focus on controllable factors, the importance of involving people in the auditing process, adapting audits to meet the needs of the service and how to develop effective action plans. 

Resources 

• Providing evidence to the CQC webinar Managing a service   

• Developing new managers and deputies guide  

S5 E7: I’m a CQC expert – by accident

ee talk to Louie Werth, Director of Care Research and CQC feedback expert! Louie discusses the importance of feedback in CQC assessments, how gathering and actioning feedback will improve your service and the quality of care you provide and the one question that the CQC will ask everyone. 

He shares how important it is that staff feel confident and prepared to give feedback to the CQC and suggests ways this can be done with regular training and practice. He also talks about how to set up surveys to gather feedback using the CQC quality statements to help structure survey questions, the benefits of conducting shorter surveys more frequently rather than one long survey, undertaking anonymous surveys to encourage honest feedback and the importance of having a separate process for handling complaints and compliments.

Resources:

• Wellbeing Report 2025 
• Home - Care Research 
• Managing a service 
• CQC assessment eLearning 

S5 E6: It’s good to connect

Listen to Kam Gill, Registered Manager at Walfinch Oxfordshire who talks about her role and involvement in the Oxford registered manager network. She emphasises the importance of connecting with other managers, your team and your local community. Kam highlights initiatives she organises like community events, exercise classes, and cultural activities to help foster local engagement and she shares the benefits of these community connections for both the service and the local residents. She also stresses the significance of recruiting and retaining the right staff, offering personal development plans, and maintaining open communication.   

Resources 

• Regional managers network directory 

• Social care managers Facebook group 

• Career and development  

S5 E5: We want colleagues to take ownership of their careers

Listen to Nicola Airey and Justine Jones who talk to us about how useful they have found utilising the care workforce pathways within their organisation. 

Nicola, Head of Talent Development at the National Care Group, explains how the pathway helps identify staff's career aspirations and development needs, leading to increased professional qualifications and career progression. Justine, Registered Manager at Oak House, shares her positive experience with staff engagement and development through one-to-one career conversations.  

Resources 

• Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification  

S5 E4: Outstanding does not mean perfect

Cheryll Champion, an ex CQC inspector working as a quality and compliance lead joins the podcast to talk about what she learnt as when her organisation was inspected under the single assessment framework, how she ensured that it was clear how the evidence linked to quality statement and the importance of knowing the regulations. Cheryll also speaks passionately about creating a culture that enable the people they support and colleagues to be themselves. 

Resources

• Local networks for managers 
• Creating a positive workplace culture seminar 
• Care workforce pathway for adult social care: overview - GOV.UK 
• Home - The Care Workers Charity 

S5 E3: The standard you walk past, is the standard you accept

Listen to Lindsay talk about her work for QCS and what she commonly sees in both 'good' and 'outstanding' services.  She gives some great tips on effectively auditing and making improvements. We also talk about her passion project around falls based on best practice research around falls risk assessment and how a 'falls huddle' can make a difference.  

Resources

• Guide to improvement; Learning from accidents and events digital module 

External resources on the falls project  

• Action Falls Train the Trainer Course | Action Falls Program | University of Nottingham Online 
• Best practice to reduce risk in your care home using the ACTiON FALLS programme | QCS 

S5 E2: Is it a 'hell yes'?

We talk to Leah Smith, Chief People Officer at Berkley Care Group about their focus and strategy on neurodiversity. It’s estimated that 15-20% of the social care workforce identify as neurodivergent in some way. 

She talks about some of the cost-effective changes they have made to their recruitment processes including providing interview questions in advance and offering video or audio application options and walking interviews. Leah also discusses how this focus has led to a positive impact on the culture of the organisation with improved employee engagement and retention. 

In the podcast, Leah refers to a couple of resources which were a book called ‘NeuroTribes: The legacy of autism and how to think smarter about people who think differently’ and a website ‘Neurodiversity at work’. 

 

Resources 

• Values-based recruitment 
• A positive culture toolkit for adult social care 

S5 E1: You are the manager – You set the quality [Live episode]

Series 5 of the care exchange has launched with a special live episode chatting to James Bullion from the Care Quality Commission (CQC).

James covers many different topics including talking about his role as Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care at the CQC. Listen as he speaks about the CQC’s plans for making improvements, how it is important to learn from things going wrong and how to ensure consistency.

Resources

• The Workforce Strategy for Adult Social Care
• Local authority assessment reports - CQC
• Go Online: Inspection Toolkit

S4 E10: Improving social care – one podcast at a time

Our final episode of the current series of the care exchange, we are joined by Zoe Fry OBE from the Outstanding Society.   

Hear Pia, Wendy and Zoe reflect on previous episodes and discuss lots of interesting topics including: 

• Different ways to train leaders and staff  

• Proactively preparing staff for CQC assessments   

• Having conversations about LGBTQ+