Profile: Care home turnaround specialist reveals some of the tricks of the trade

What does today’s care home do if either it fails to meet statutory requirements or is running into financial problems? Admit that all is not well and seek professional help is the smart solution.

A growing breed of management consultants known as turnaround specialists are available literally to turn things around or, in the worst case scenario, to ease the passage of the home through the process of administration to, if possible, a sale to new owners.

As Lynn Fearn, managing director of Healthcare Management Solutions (HCMS), a company dedicated to helping care homes in distress, puts it: “Any care home can find itself with problems.” What she means is that whether it’s a sole provider or a larger group, some of the forces at work in today’s financial and employment climate can prove overwhelming.

“There are a number of issues, the first being that many care home businesses are over-geared - in layman’s terms this means they have over borrowed - and as a consequence they cannot invest in say improvements to property or staff recruitment and training. This coupled with the slow growth in fees means that some care homes end up in serious financial difficulty,” says Ms Fearn.

“The second issue,” she says, is that: “The recruitment of qualified nurses is a national problem. And since care homes cannot match the NHS conditions of employment, this makes it even more difficult to hire the qualified staff that so many of them need. “Finally, it is difficult to find good quality care home managers. Recent media coverage, concentrating as it tends to on negative aspects, has meant that the right people may be reluctant to apply for such posts.”

Part of the answer to the lack of good quality care home managers, she thinks, can be put down to the adverse publicity that the care home industry has been facing in recent years. “As an industry, I think that we should do everything we can to publicise the many good and beneficial aspects of care homes so that people coming to work within the sector have no doubt as to its value and how rewarding a profession it is to work in,” says Ms Fearn. To this day one of the greatest pleasures of her job is: “Seeing a home where you wouldn’t want your mum or dad to stay in for a moment longer, change into a place that is both safe and efficient.”

Involve the management team

Rescuing a failing care home is dependent in part on the extent of the problem, of course. “We can provide everything from a complete management service that sorts out all operational and financial issues to a more targeted approach aimed at solving specific problems,” says Ms Fearn. “For instance, where the regulator has issued a notice to close the care home, maybe because the care was assessed as not being up to scratch, perhaps the care plans and nursing were not up to standard, we have gone in and developed and implemented plans – always where possible with the home’s existing management team – to give them the necessary leadership and direction to save the home.” A vital part of the HCMS repair kit is a range of innovative practices, systems and services. As important as the start of the project is the end of it, which means forward planning for the successful continuation of the company concerned. “The home has to be able to continue when we’ve gone so the exit strategy is as important as our entrance into the project,” says Ms Fearn.

“There have, of course, been times where we have been called in too late to be able to save the business and in such a case we have offered a controlled wind down that enables clients and staff to move on in a dignified manner. That’s all that can be done in some cases.”

But the success rate for HCMS remains high. Over the last four years the company has worked with around 250 care homes, and now manages some 90 of them. Ms Fearn explains: “We either hand the company back to the owners once we have turned it around or can offer a full management service.”

All-round experience

Her success as managing director – she has been with HCMS since 2010 - is undoubtedly fuelled by her earlier career. “I trained as a nurse and then as a midwife. By the early 1990s, I was a business manager in an NHS obstetric unit. I joined the care home sector in 1994 as a night nurse, then took a care home manager’s job.

“I can truly say that I’ve come up through the ranks and have held most of the traditional management positions in the sector – this has been of great benefit to me when it comes to my present position.”

The plans for the future of HCMS? “Steady growth,” says Ms Fearn, adding that one of the strengths of the company is its ability to deal with all financial and personnel issues that may occur in care homes and offer tailored solutions. “Many companies that are similar to us are specialists, that’s to say they deal only with a particular type of care home or specialise in financial issues. HCMS is, as far as I know, the only company that deals with every aspect of care home management. “Our aim is always to improve quality of care for residents and drive up performance and value for our clients.”

First job: An insurance loss assessor

Favourite book: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Favourite film: Madly, Truly, Deeply

Favourite piece of music: Handel’s Messiah

Best present received: A table runner embroidered by my daughter Last holiday: Padstow, Cornwall last summer