Events & News

The Care Market Development Team shares with Staffordshire Care Providers information about activities, meetings and events across Staffordshire and Midlands which support the Adult Care Sector workforce to lead, deliver and grow.

This page is designed to be saved as a favourite drop in location, enabling Managers to understand social care direction of travel and be amongst the first to change to a new idea or way of doing something.

Featured event links for your selection:

Staff psychological wellbeing hub - Discover staff wellbeing events

Skills for Care - Discover being prepared for CQC inspection

Social Care Institute for Excellence - Discover State of Care report

Department of Health & Social Care - Discover new pools of talent

Care Quality Commission - Latest items keeping you ahead of the curve

Upcoming Events

The Care Market Development Team have the following free training courses and webinars running over the next few months.

The training courses listed below are fully funded. Spaces are limited and will be administered on a first come, first served basis. We’re expecting spaces to get booked up quickly so please book yourself or colleagues onto your chosen training as soon as you can to avoid disappointment.

There is a limit of 2 people per registered location for the training, we would ask that you not book more than 2 spaces for any training session to ensure other care providers are able to access the training.

Booking onto training through our current Eventbrite page, which you can also navigate to via your MiDoS for CARE home screen.

Training opportunities include:

Recording with Care
Positive Behaviour Management
Activity Co-Ordination
Audit Training (care home only)
Care Planning (care home only)
How to avoid closed cultures

Recording with Care
To help healthcare support workers and adult social care workers explore and understand the principles of good record keeping. Fully funded training for everyone.
Select dates https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/566212907047

Audit & Care Planning events

Care Planning (Care Homes only)
A fully funded Care Planning training programme is being made available to Staffordshire Care Homes. 27 April.
Select dates https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/513857079357

Audit (Care Homes only)
A fully funded Audit training programme is being made available to Staffordshire Care Homes.
Select dates https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/513886748097

Positive Behaviour Management
To provide an overview of the subject, enabling an understanding of behaviours & their origin in order to develop ways to respond positively.
Select dates https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/566354219717
Mental Capacity Act 2005 - Application into Practice
This event is intended for all frontline staff working in the health and social care sector. The course is free, and no previous qualifications are required. This is a two hour virtual course.
Safeguarding Course Booking Page
Staff Psychological Wellbeing Hub
Offering FREE confidential support for Social Care and NHS Staff in Staffordshire & Stoke on Trent. Information sharing webinars for social care providers to find out more about the free confidential service. Further sessions will be organised to meet demand, as required.

Webinar 15th June 2023
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/536224380557
How to avoid Closed Cultures?
Webinar 10 May 2023
CQC have identified a number of elements of some services that contribute to a closed culture. Within these there are 2 particular aspects related to workforce:
- Weak leadership
- Staff lacking the right skills, training or experience to support people

In this short workshop, facilitated by Skills for Care, you will have an opportunity to explore these elements in relation to your organisation and identify gaps and opportunities to make positive changes
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/546387308147.

Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards (DoLS Awareness)
This event is intended for all frontline staff working in the health and social care sector. The course is free, and no previous qualifications are required. This is a two hour virtual course.
Deprivation of Liberties Safeguards Course Booking Page

Adult Safeguarding Awareness
This event is intended for all frontline staff working in the health and social care sector. The course is free, and no previous qualifications are required. This is a two hour virtual course.
Adult Safeguarding Awareness Course Booking Page

Featured Local Events

The Social Care Workforce Programme was shared with Care Providers on 19th April 2023: Staffordshire's Social Care Workforce Strategy is now live and can be located on their dedicated webpages: Staffordshire Social Care Workforce - Valuing social care in Staffordshire (valuingsocialcareinstaffs.co.uk)
The Digitising Social Care Records fund is being managed by NHS England. The aim is to support those care providers who are still using paper records, to move to approved digital solutions.

Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Integrated Care System are working together to bring this fund to local care providers.

We shared information in 2022/23 regarding funding support for the implementation of a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system.

The Care Market Development Team continues to be responsible for the administration of these funds across the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent ICS.

Due to an increase in funding, this financial year we can enhance our offer to £6000 per registered location or 50% of the year one system costs, whichever is the lower of the amounts. We are unable to exceed 50% as a condition of administering the funding and the limit of £6000 will enable us to support up to 25% of registered care locations across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

For example, we would potentially be able to contribute £6000 towards £13,000 of year one implementation costs. If your year one implementation costs were £7000, we would be able to potentially contribute £3500.

Funding applies only to the first-year implementation costs and there is currently no funding available for subsequent years. If currently available funding is distributed, further applications can only be funding if additional funding is received for 2024/25. The additional funding for 2024/25 is not guaranteed.

If you are unable to financially sustain the implementation of a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system, we would still like to hear from you to understand the pressures that you face. We can collate this information and share this learning to better represent the pressures being faced by care providers.

We currently have funding to support approximately 25% of registered care locations across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent.

The Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) funding program is due to finish in March 2025, after which the funding opportunity will be withdrawn.

If you are interested in funding, you will need to meet the following criteria:
- Be a registered care location (with the CQC) in either Staffordshire or Stoke-on-Trent. This includes care homes, home care, supported living and shared lives services. Unregistered locations cannot be funded.
- You want to implement a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system from the list of accredited suppliers. Suppliers outside of this list cannot be considered but we would still like to hear from you if you are procuring a system outside of the accredited supplier list, so we can better understand the needs of care providers.
- Have a current Data Security Protection Toolkit (DSPT) or would be willing to achieve compliance within the current financial year. If you would like support to achieve DSPT compliance, please email DSPTsupport@sarcp.com.
- You have an active NHS mail account or will activate your NHS mail account within the current financial year. Having a current Data Security Protection Toolkit (DSPT) is a pre-requisite to accessing NHS mail.
- You have not previously accessed this fund.
Please note that we are unable to fund registered locations outside of Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent and funding is only available for the implementation of a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system and not other software solutions (e.g., staff rostering system).

If you would like to submit an application for funding, we would recommend that you first utilize the Digital Social Care assured supplier tool to support you with identifying a suitable system.

We would recommend looking at the suitable options, gathering quotes and ensuring that you have a thorough understanding of the respective systems and their benefits.

Digital Social Care have produced a buyer’s guide for digital social care records and we recommend you review the guidance in this document to support you with your procurement of a suitable system.

Once you have decided upon a Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system and have obtained a quote, you will need to submit
expression of interest application form to DigitalFundingEnquiries@staffordshire.gov.uk.
These applications will be reviewed, and a funding decision shared with you.

You do not need to have signed the contract with your system supplier at the point at which you apply for funding. We can give you an in-principle funding figure based on a quote. Funding is subject to change in the event of your contract value differing from the quote.
For example, if your year one Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system quote is £13,000, we would potentially fund up to £6000. If at the point of signing the contract the system cost varied up, we would not be able to increase funding above the £6000. If the cost decreased to £10,000, we would then be only able to fund up to £5000.

On confirmation of a successful funding application, you will then need to complete a short baseline benefits survey (approximately 10 minutes) and share a copy of your supplier invoice.

Six months after the implementation of your chosen system, you will need to complete a short implementation benefits survey (approximately 10 minutes) to help us understand if the Digital Social Care Record (DSCR) system has had a positive impact on your care service. We will contact you to confirm when this would need to be done.

Regarding funding for sensor-based falls prevention and monitoring technology. We are currently in the process of funding several technology solutions from 2022/23 and will share opportunities for this year around the start of July 2023.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us at DigitalFundingEnquiries@staffordshire.gov.uk