Finalist for Provider of the Year

We may not have won this year, but we're proud to even be considered a finalist for Provider of the Year at the Scottish Care Conference.

We were awarded the finalist position for Provider of the Year at the Scottish Care Conference. Whilst we didn’t win this year, there’s always another year as our team continuously strives for success. 

We submitted our entry as we are a care at home provider who has been established since 2008. We’ve opened additional offices in Glasgow South and Ayrshire due to the success we’ve seen in Edinburgh. Throughout the last 15 years, Care Inspectorate has positively rated Bluebird Care with grades of 5 and 6 but predominantly 6s.

The home care sector is a challenging sector, but we’ve not let it hold us back. We only offer the very best home care and live-in care with a person-centred approach; nothing is too big or too small – ultimately their customers and team come first.

We excel as we listen to those around us, we send out bi-annual surveys so that we can obtain data to analyse and set out actions for the year, along with regularly holding team meetings, supervisions, care reviews and asking for reviews to ensure they have full insight into the business.

Director, Jane Perry, is on the Scottish Care executive committee and is a representative for Lothian Care at Home providers linking in with Edinburgh Health and Social Care Partnership for any issues providers face.

Bluebird Care is also represented by Jane in the Strategic Collaborative Group in NHS Lothian wider representing the sector.  Jane also sits on Bluebird Care’s Network Engagement Committee (NET) to ensure that not only Scotland leads the way for excellent standards of care provision but others within our franchise network can do the same.  

We’ve also launched a mental health and well-being initiative, and this is only the start, below is what they’ve been working on over the past year. 

• We launched Wellbeing Wednesdays giving our team the opportunity to spend time with one another, have a safe to space to talk as well as learning about key topics.
• We have an open-door policy whereby anybody can stop the Senior Leadership Team to talk through any issues.  
• We have implemented certified mental health first aiders to ensure stigma is removed in the workplace and encourage the team to speak up if they’re struggling.  
• The trainer across all three offices created and rolled out mental health training to everybody across the team to help them better understand their own situation and be equipped to support others. 
• After speaking with several members of their team they realised that menopause was having an impact. As the team is predominately females over the age of 40, the team decided to put support into place for anyone struggling with menopause.
• We have also taken a workplace menopause pledge through the Wellbeing of Women.
• Natalie Alexander, renowned author, and life couch also came along to along to talk to the team and educate them. She taught the team relaxation techniques, educated them on menopausal issues and even trialled some supermarket remedies to reduce symptoms. This helped the team to understand their own menopause better but also how they can support their peers.  

They have even organised police safety talks so that their team have expert knowledge passed down to them especially given that their care team are lone workers. As part of this, the team are in the middle of rolling out the Hollie Panic app so that if a member of the team is ever in trouble whilst working, they can alert the team quickly and someone will be on hand to help.  

The team have loved these new initiatives and has really engaged with any activity. Plans are already being created for phase two.