Some of the most common sustainability challenges in care homes are balancing product usage and care standards. Ensuring you meet your green goals without compromising cleaning or care standards is an ever-present issue.
Here are some of the most common cleaning and sustainability challenges that care homes face on a regular basis.
Inconsistent usage of products and processes
Without standardised guidelines across all the care homes in your group, it’s easy for costs to rise and standards to fall. Some of the most frequent issues include:
- Different homes using different products in different ways! This leads to inconsistencies in spending and cleanliness standards. One of your care homes could be spending double, triple or even more than another.
- Attempting to reduce costs by cutting cleaning spend, meaning hygiene standards slip and homes don’t smell as fresh and inviting as they could. It’s not always about using less, it’s about making the right choice.
- New staff aren’t trained on correct product choice and use. This can affect job satisfaction and create retention challenges. If your colleagues don’t feel they are equipped to do their job, they might vote with their feet.
Product wastage
If your care home teams aren’t regularly trained or you have a high churn of staff, they won’t be clear on the best use of products and equipment. This can result in product waste and declining standards. Several problems can arise from this:
- Too many cleaning products are purchased but never used, increasing waste and potentially becoming a COSHH risk.
- Inefficient and incorrect use of cleaning products means cleaning takes longer, creates unnecessary waste and forfeits hygiene standards.
- A lack of team product training compromises residents’ overall care and cleanliness.
- Using too many ready-to-use products when auto-dosage or concentrated products while work just as well, if not better.
Lack of clear spending and usage data
A lack of regular, standardised reporting across your care home group makes it impossible to determine whether they’re running efficiently. This can create several challenges:
- No knowledge of if, when and how supplies are being used, or if they are simply ‘walking out the door’.
- Lack of transparency and communication means managers are unaware of general inefficiencies in their care home.
- Poor stock control results in rushed orders and panic buying.
Many of the above issues can be easily resolved and will have a dramatic impact on both your spending and your environmental impact. Couple that with increased staff satisfaction and resident and visitor comfort and it seems like a win-win situation.
Acticare’s Auto-Dose Dispenser
How To Combat Sustainability Challenges in Care Homes
It can be more straightforward than you think to achieve your financial, efficiency and sustainability goals in your care home. In fact, we’re making it our mission at Acticare to help care homes raise standards and consume less.
Reporting
Your care home equipment supplier should provide you with detailed, transparent reporting as a minimum. These reports will allow you to spot any anomalies in spend or product over or under use.
Product Trials
Working with your care home supplier, you should be able to trial different cleaning or laundry products or even different equipment. You can see for yourself if this improves the standards in your care home but means less product wastage. Using concentrated cleaning products, for example, will mean less product waste and less plastic.
Care Home Team Training
Rolling out standardised product and equipment training across your care home group will have tangible benefits. Teams and colleagues will feel more comfortable and informed about product usage and how it means no change in standards. It might even mean an improvement in standards! More knowledgeable, happier teams mean happier residents and visitors.
At Acticare, our values start with ‘Client First’. It’s part of our ethos to work with our care home customers to understand your current situation and how we can work with you to improve it. One of our clients recently shared that they saved 60% in product use just by switching to an auto-dosing machine.
To find out more about sustainability challenges in care homes, and how you can overcome them, contact our team today.