Our-staff
Oakcroft Nursing Home provides high quality care to their Clients. Their rights, dignity and independence are as important as creating trust and confidence in our professional standards. All our Clients have their care needs assessed prior to admission in order to develop a Personal Care Plan, which is then regularly reviewed and updated by our Manager, Nurses and Carers.
…the Nurses and Carers pull out all the stops
To achieve the highest possible standards of care in all aspects of best practice, we continually invest in staff training. We operate a ‘key worker’ system throughout the Home giving each Client a named Nurse and Carer.
The standard of care given during Mum’s stay was exceptional
Sharon South has been Managing Oakcroft Nursing Home for the past 5 years and has been working in the Care industry in general for past 24 years. Her vast experience and knowledge, together with her enthusiasm, hard work and ‘sunny’ disposition ensures that Oakcroft consistently achieves and maintains the utmost standards of care.
She is proud to work with a great team who make each day meaningful to the Clients and enhance their quality of life with care, compassion and companionship, focusing on the little things that make such a difference in their lives. The dedication and care they deliver creates a warm loving, homely environment for all.
Sharon has been instrumental in Oakcroft’s accreditation with a ‘commend’ in the Gold Standard Framework Steps to Success and is one of the pioneers for the ‘Healthy Aging and Dementia (HIN) in Lewisham. See article below.
Healthy Ageing and Dementia Newsletter – May 2018
Health Innovation Network and My Home Life have launched the Care Home Pioneer Programme – a free leadership support and professional development programme for 18 south London care home managers to help advance their skills and facilitate personal growth.
We feature below the second of our interviews with our Care Home Pioneers – Sharon South, from Oakcroft Nursing Home in Lewisham offers her reflections on being a care home manager.
1. What are you most proud of in your Home?
I am most proud of how have I improved the home. Our last three consecutive CQC inspection reports have been ‘Good’. We have been accredited the Gold Standard Framework and Steps to Success. I find it most gratifying to head a team that dedicate their time to ensuring residents spend their final days having all their final wishes granted and at the same time giving their family’s peace of mind. This has taught me that with good teamwork and planning I can deliver a standard of care that I am proud of whilst we continue to improve on our good practices. I believe a happy home is made up of happy staff, happy residents and happy families!
2. What is the biggest challenge for your Home or staff?
The biggest challenge we face as a home is one of financial constraints. Due to the cost of living increase, and general cuts across the board, we now face a struggle ahead to continue the delivery of quality care we are known to provide. Tissue viability is an example of such cuts. In addition, the fear is that at some point in the future we may have to resort to agency staffing to cover shifts, and this is all due to cut backs resulting in fewer nurses gaining qualifications.
3. If you could improve one thing in the NHS, what would it be?
What I would improve about the NHS would be to ensure safer staffing levels. As a privately run Nursing Home, dependent on the NHS Hospitals to train skilled Nurses, I would like their numbers to be greatly increased to ensure that there is staff available to work in all sectors of Health care Delivery.
Communication is a big issue we face between ourselves and the multidisciplinary teams in the event of one of our residents being admitted to the local hospital. I would also like to improve the Discharge planning process to ensure seamless transition of care from Hospital to the Care Home.