Redholme Memory Care is a Liverpool based care home specialising in care for people living with dementia. Dissatisfied with the in-person training they were receiving, Redholme made the switch to FuturU’s online training in December 2021, and haven’t looked back since!
We sat down with Mandy, Q/A Officer, and Ann, manager and owner of Redholme Memory Care, to learn why they trust FuturU to keep their staff’s skills up to date and help deliver the very best standard of care to their 55 residents.
How did you first find out about FuturU?
We’d been using Newcross to source agency staff for a while, and were introduced to the online training available through FuturU in December 2021. We found that staff coming to us via Newcross were very well equipped to do their job – they were knowledgeable, presentable and really looked the part. We were keen to get all our staff trained up to the same standard.
Before discovering FuturU, how were you delivering training?
We had a company coming in, but it wasn’t working out the way we wanted it to. The certification and content wasn’t good – FuturU is much better.
We used to have trainers come in to conduct training within work hours, which could be disruptive. Because FuturU’s training is entirely online, our staff can now complete training in their own time, which is a win-win – they get extra pay which they really like, and we don’t have to factor in that in-person training during work hours.
What’s the uptake been like within the team?
The whole team is using FuturU – that’s currently 61 members of staff. We’ve got quite a number of the team who’re very keen and have completed all the courses they’ve been assigned plus everything else that’s available on the platform. We’ve got others who aren’t quite where they need to be, and a few that struggle – life can sometimes get in the way. But we do our best to support them, and our Clinical Lead Alison has done some classroom style training to bolster practical skills.
We have quite a few overseas staff who’ve been with us for 18 months or so, and they’ve adapted to the FuturU training really well, they’ve really embraced it.
And across the team, the feedback’s been really good. Our staff like the format the training’s in – they find it easy to follow, and it’s clear and concise, which is particularly important for those who don’t have English as their first language.
Do you use any other training providers aside from FuturU?
For the most part, no – FuturU meets the vast majority of our needs. Like we said, our Clinical Lead Alison runs some in-person training, and we do get specialists in for some training from time to time, for example our fire awareness and first aid training.
What sets FuturU apart from other providers?
Using FuturU to train our team has certainly saved us money, but it’s not so much about that for us, it’s about the quality of the training you offer. The quality of FuturU’s training is far better than that of the company we had coming in – they’d come in every day for two weeks at a time, but the outcomes were never as good as we have now with FuturU.
We also really like that, as you go through each module, there are checks and balances to make sure you’ve digested and understood all the information that’s been given. It’s not something you can just skim through, which is obviously really important. You need to be able to answer the questions – okay, you mightn’t get them all right straight away – but there needs to be those checkpoints. And they can go back as often as they need to, which isn’t always the case.
Are there any courses in particular that stand out for you?
We’ve both done all the training ourselves, because we want to know what the staff are covering. We particularly like the person-centred care course – a person-centred approach is so important when you’re caring for people living with Dementia as we do. I like to share a quote with our team; ‘We work in their home, they don’t live in our work.’ They’re two very different statements. The importance of seeing the person, not the illness is demonstrated very clearly through that training.
How easy has it been to set up and use FuturU?
I would consider myself a bit of a technophobe, but I’ve found FuturU really easy to use. The instructions are clear and simple, and Ant, the Learning Platform Manager at FuturU, has been so helpful and kind.
Would you recommend FuturU to other care organisations?
Yes, definitely!
