Four members of staff at a Skelmersdale care home are leading the way in seeking their qualifications in nursing.
The members of staff at Birch Green Care Home, Marie Stitt, Jess Mooney, Stephanie Williams and Tayla Neeley, have all started the Assistant Nurse Practitioners’ course.
Vicky Sudworth, General Manager at Birch Green Care Home, said: “As an organisation, we want to provide the very best quality of care possible and this will help to raise the quality of the nursing care we provide.
“We commit a lot of time and resource in the quality of training for our staff at all levels and ultimately that benefits our residents.”
The four employees – all currently team leaders at Birch Green – will undergo the two-year course in nursing care at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan).
The Assistant Nurse Practitioners’ qualification was created to help solve a shortage of qualified nurses, designed to give suitably experienced staff in the care industry the chance to develop clinical and managerial skills and provide support for nursing and management teams. The ANP also helps to bridge the gap between traditional healthcare assistants and registered nurses.
The programme follows a curriculum which closely matches the training registered nurses undertake in many areas and gives staff the flexibility – within their range of skills – to assist nurses closely with their work.
Birch Green Care Home is part of the award-winning Springhill Care Group, which also operates homes in Accrington and Bristol.
Recently, inspectors from the industry’s watchdog the Care Quality Commission (CQC) made particular note of the commitment and quality of staff and the training they receive at Birch Green in awarding the home a ‘good’ rating.
All areas of the home were examined, from the safety of the service to how it is led, with inspectors looking at everything from how medicines are stored to the quality of day-to-day activities.
Left to right are Marie Stitt, Jess Mooney, Stephanie Williams, Tayla Neeley