A message from Lynn Laughland: An award-winning week to remember for my HRM Homecare Heroes

The past week has been one to remember for HRM Homecare Services.

Firstly, we won a Top 20 Homecare Provider award from homecare.co.uk for both our hardworking Central West and South West teams. Then on Friday night HRM Homecare won the Technology and People Award in the Scottish Care Awards 2021.

We also received further UK recognition in care industry publication homecareinsight.co.uk with two nominations in its Power List – myself with a Business Executive Award and Sandra Auld a Quality and Compliance Champion Award.

These are absolutely outstanding achievements for my staff and deserve huge praise. It shows that HRM Homecare is leading the way in providing excellent, high quality care at home services.

I’ve said before, the past 18 months since the onset of COVID-19 have been the toughest I can remember since setting up HRM 27 years ago.

But since then I have seen how everyone at HRM Homecare has worked tirelessly to deliver the best care possible to all our clients. Take, for instance, Sandra. As Business Support Manager, she has been a key part of my team for a number of years and last December I asked her to examine in detail the quality-driven procedures right across the business, so HRM Homecare had the highest standard of excellence that could be achieved.

This task began before the COVID-19 pandemic, but continued through it. Every part of the business was examined in fine detail, from audits to health and safety. She oversaw a complete culture change that saw every member of staff make quality their business. Sandra described it as a ‘lightbulb moment’ for all departments and staff.

Examples of the work she achieved was through focusing on how care is delivered, staff benefits and training, providing the right infrastructure – especially digital, including Near Me technology, and an app for staff on their phones to provide easier access rotas and other vital information  – so people, service users and their families had the resources they needed when they needed them.

HRM Homecare also, during the height of the pandemic, began working towards attaining the world’s most recognised quality management standard, ISO 9001: 2015, which comes with a ‘Crown & Tick’ mark that underlines the security that comes from Government-backed certification. This has been a huge boost to our credentials.

This sort of commitment is why I call all my staff HRM Homecare Heroes. To me, they are all heroes who provide the best quality care support they can which, combined with the use of technology, is having a hugely positive impact on the lives of people who receive care at home.

My biggest wish for the rest of 2021 is to encourage more people to take up a career in care at home support, and become an HRM Homecare Hero.