I feel this had benefitted me far more than just working or attending college. This has helped me to gain skills to progress further, using the knowledge and support from both work and college and the understanding of a business environment.   

I work closely with office co-ordinator Marie on a day to day basis, who I have learnt a lot from.

My main duties are organising the training – helping with the systems, planning, managing and recording all aspects of the training which is offered to all staff. I record all compliments and attend and minutes meetings. I work on reception 1 day a week meeting and greeting and dealing with telephone calls from clients and staff. I also help with updating the website.

Being an apprentice is a valuable experience as I am continually learning, taking on new and different challenges and enhancing my career prospects. It’s a fantastic opportunity which I would recommend to anyone

My main duties are checking all the timesheets and calculating mileage claims as well as looking after the pool cars.  I also help with invoicing and produce many spreadsheets for various projects given to me by management.

I attend Redditch College once a week on a Thursday, to study for my Accountancy qualification. I really enjoy college and feel I am doing well. I am completing my level 2 AAT and hope to go on to do my level 3 and level 4. After that, I am striving towards becoming a management accountant.

Being an apprentice at Worcestershire Care Group, I have learnt a great deal of things that have helped and will continue to help me later on in my life. I have learnt how to work in an office environment, as I have never worked in one before, and am working on improving my time management and my organisational skills.  I have learnt a lot about finance and accountancy in college and at Worcestershire Care Group that has helped improve my working ability and I am sure that I can use all that I have learnt to get good positive grades in my exams.

I think there are a lot of positives about being an apprentice, such as: gaining experience at work; striving to gain qualifications; earning, which gives you incentive to work hard.

Being an apprentice gives you a starting point in your career choice.

Our staff have gained a great deal from attending this course and they now find themselves better equipped to support clients in remaining in their own homes at the end of their lives.

They appreciate the importance of client choice and meeting clients’ needs.  Our communication session covered methods of dealing with clients effectively, managing difficult situations and applying strategies when talking and listening to clients and their families.

The course included training on the treatment of pain and symptom control, pain relieving measures and the experience of pain from the client’s point of view.

Recognising and understanding the feelings associated with grief was also covered and this knowledge is used to support those suffering loss.

Our staff visited Hospices, Funeral Undertakers, Crematoriums and did case studies on the Hospice Movement, the Macmillan Service or the Marie Curie Home Cancer Service.  They also prepared a presentation.

If we can use the knowledge and experience gained to help you or your loved ones, please contact us on 01527 575904.

So March has a full programme of training updates and a very exciting new training programme in Palliative Care. It is based on the MacMillian course “Foundations in Palliative Care”. We have tweaked it slightly to reflect domiciliary care. It is a twelve week course for one and a half hours per week. We have two groups of twelve staff going to undertake the course and a waiting list of ten staff ready for the next course we shall run.

Training is a very costly item of expenditure but brings with it great results in staff continuity and customer satisfaction. The CQC and local authority demand certain trainings which often means we are left with only a small budget to offer training such as the Palliative Care Course. So with our staff we split the cost; the company pay for all the resources and trainers, and the staff are coming in in their own time for the Palliative Care Course.

Full to overflowing Palliative Care Courses demonstrate that our staff take their jobs seriously, want to know how to do it right, and are willing to put themselves out to give excellent care. Need I say more? It is very humbling.

Putting all the admin and team leader’s brains together helped produce a plan that we put into action on that Saturday morning (18th December) when we were suddenly deluged with heavy snow falls.

Our most vulnerable clients were immediately identified and care was maintained by staff walking to them. Contact details of neighbours, family and friends were easily to hand so we could phone them to enlist their help when we could not get to the client ourselves.

This snow did not want to go away and was still on the ground 10 days later and Christmas was in the middle of this period.

Our staff did their own planning to make sure they could get to work. There were staff who walked miles during this period, staff who left their cars on main roads as their own roads were snow blocked so they could get out in the morning, and staffs’ families who dug them out so they could go to work or ferried them around to their calls to ease their load.

It was a splendid effort all round. Everyone played their part to ensure our clients were cared for and staff still enjoyed Christmas. We have all lived to tell the tale. It was a humbling experience to see such effort from all of our staff.

But we are all still watching the weather forecasts carefully so we maintain our preparedness. As the year closes we shall be sitting down and analysing what went well and what we could improve next time…..

The company sees itself as a learning organisation, that is learning and growing the things it does well and learning and changing the things it does not do so well. To be able to do this we need to have staff who are confident in their roles to take part. Getting qualifications helps them and causes a tremendous “buzz” and lots of entusiasm. I am really looking forward to seeing them succeed, which means that the clients will get the best care and the company will grow in competence.

Representatives of the company went to the splendid Guildhall in London and were treated to a wonderful evening. They did not win the national award but were delighted that they had represented the West Midlands in the following categories:

• Newcomer To Care: Amy Hughes who works in the Worcester area.
• IT Innovation Award for their use of technology to ensure they deliver a quality service.
• Home Care Innovation for their Rapid Response Scheme that gets care packages started immediately.

Stephen Ewin, a Director of Worcestershire Care Group said it was a great honour to represent the West Midlands, and getting this far demonstrated the effort that the staff put into providing a great service to all our clients.

We have spoken to our CQC inspector, Christine Potter (email:Christine.Potter@cqc.org.uk). She says she will talk to anyone who needs reassurance that we are the same organisation.

People searching the net would not find us registered with the CQC. We continue to have an excellent status with them. I don’t think I would give them an excellent score if I was asked!!!