Anne
I maintain a MS Acess resident/trustee/staff/property database. Every April I print off a built-in Resident Report for each resident and ask them to add to it or correct any errors. Any significant information (unlikely, but perhaps the recent lack of a NOK or similar) is passed to our 3-trustee strong Well-Being Committee (WBC).
In May, the WBC members carry out informal visits to the resident’s flat or cottage, when residents can, if they want, raise issues. Or the WBC Trustees could raise something they had noticed. The WBC then discuss these visits at their June meeting.
Every September our Warden completes a Care Risk Assessment on each resident, which is shown to our WBC at their September meeting.
Our (excellent) Warden is, however, the linchpin.of our resident welfare monitoring system. She touches base with each resident every weekday (she’s required to take weekends off), and keeps a daily log of all her contacts with residents (which I see at least twice a week, so I also keep up to speed).
The Warden writes a oen-picture report on each resident before each of our 3 WBC meetings (February, June and September) and the 3 Full Biard meetings that follow them in March, July and November).
The only thing we don’t do is a formal financial review. However, we (the trustees and staff) make it clear that we are available at any time to give basic financial advice to any worried residents – on the understanding that if a resident had a complicated problem, they would be referred to a local specialist.
We have never come across a fraudulent beneficiary so far (touch wood), which we put down to rigorous pre-selection screening by the Clerk and Warden. As the Clerk, I look closely at documentary and any social media evidence and our Warden uses her well-honed instinct to assess the applicant’s character.
Yes, it’s all heavily based on ‘analogue’ assessments – gut feelings and hand-written pen pictures, rather than any ‘digital’ algorithms. But we’re talking about individuals – who, like it or not, are definitely ‘analogue’!
All I can say is. It seems to work!
Nick Stiven
clerk@stjohnswilton.org.uk