First Choice Healthcare Services

First Choice Healthcare Services started operating in Coventry in 2022 and due to high demands for care, have since expanded with a second branch in Falkirk, Scotland. They specialise in higher dependency clients, such as those with chronic and palliative care needs, choosing to operate in these cities because of the growing aging population and number of disabled individuals in these areas. 

Having spent the first two years of their operation using pen and paper, they realised it was time to digitise and wanted to focus in particular on real-time care planning, scheduling and incident reporting.

After less than a year with Nursebuddy, they are now one of our earliest adopters, quick to get stuck in with new features like our Carer Wellbeing Survey.

This case study explores their journey with Nursebuddy so far, which has seen them grow from a start-up to a thriving multi-branch business.

How has changing to Nursebuddy helped your homecare business?

“I was looking for a software that had real-time care planning capability and which would help us with scheduling calls more efficiently. I also wanted something that would help us to manage incidents. All of these things were pretty difficult and time-consuming to do on pen and paper.

“Since moving to Nursebuddy though, I’ve also found it’s made managing our workforce really simple, easy and efficient too. We are able to monitor staff activities more easily to ensure they attend calls on time. And we can ensure good quality care by scheduling calls to the individual’s needs according to their care plan. All of this means that we can then focus on making a real difference in running the business smoothly.

“I couldn’t live without the capability that Nursebuddy offers us now - especially call scheduling, rotas, invoicing and call monitoring.”

How has Nursebuddy helped you on your growth journey?

A big help from Nursebuddy in our expansion to a second branch in Scotland has been through its comprehensive and easy to implement care plans. It’s made it much easier to ensure that we are meeting our clients’ individual needs.

It was also really easy to upgrade our plan to better suit our needs. We came to Nursebuddy on their ‘Essentials’ package for start-ups, but we quickly realised we’d need to move up as we increased the number of care hours we deliver. That gave us access to an additional level of support with the Nursebuddy team though, which we’ve been really glad to have.

What strategies do you use to retain carers?

Using the carer wellbeing feature in Nursebuddy has really helped us to know when things have gone wrong. If a carer has had a stressful day with clients, we know about it, and we can do something about it.

Alongside having this information from Nursebuddy, we nominate a weekly worker of the week and gift them with a voucher. This helps us to make sure our carers are well looked after and are being recognised for the hard work they do."

What would you say to care companies considering switching to Nursebuddy?

“Nursebuddy has a really user-friendly interface and a comprehensive set of features. For us, the real focus was on real-time care planning, scheduling and incident reporting, which has helped us to streamline our operations and improve outcomes for our care recipients.

Nursebuddy also has 24-hour support if you need it.” (Via our in-app chat, Buddy!)

Farai Kahiya
Registered Manager, First Choice Healthcare Services