The COVID-19 Recovery and Rehabilitation project was kindly funded by The Rayne Foundation to help care homes share with each other what they are doing to help individuals living, dying, visiting and working in care homes for older people to move on from COVID-19. This story relates to Sharing decision-making, which is an important part of Developing best practice together.

If you have a story to share, please email us on mhlcharity@outlook.com.

As one care home shared… 

Sometimes when the phrase ‘shared decision-making’ is used, it may conjure the idea of a laborious process of involving several people in order to make a clinical decision. It may also be viewed as a hurdle which slows down things, albeit important. But shared decision-making is a critical aspect of care home life.

 

Working together in co-production has been one of the greatest outcomes of the difficult lockdown period. The challenging situation presented several opportunities for shared decision-making. What’s more, the positive attitudes and willingness to co-produce have carried on post-lock down. Regardless of which department they worked in, staff have pooled together their ideas and have worked together to spontaneously develop activities for residents. For example, when it’s been required, staff members have rung relatives to ask more questions about residents’ interests, or when relatives call, staff members have taken the opportunity to have ‘unexpected’ further conversations about their loved ones. These conversations were then used to create an activity.

 

The pressures and difficulties of the lockdown enabled shared decision-making to be exercised beyond the traditional clinical context in which it’s often spoken about. This has been particularly successful because of our care staff, and their willingness to work together to deliver something fun and unexpected.

 

Beyond lockdown, it has enabled care staff to see even more practical ways in which relatives, residents and others can partake in shared decision-making regarding varied aspects of care home life.

How are you now involving others in decision-making for the benefit of residents? (we’d love to hear from you)