While certain industries have embraced technology, using it to aid everything from operational efficiency to customer service, the care home sector is still heavily reliant on outdated processes, particularly in relation to food safety.
It wouldn’t be uncommon, for example, to see care home staff walking around with pen and paper in hand, manually ticking off checklists to ensure the day-to-day well-being of residents, and regulatory food safety compliance.
The trouble is, paperwork can be highly inconsistent. Staff may forget to do it – or leave it partially complete – writing can be illegible, and documents can get lost. Even with the best intentions, it can be difficult to keep everything in one place, and if you do have an unexpected visitor swing by (i.e. the CQC), it may be stressful trying to gather anything they need at such short notice.
Care home software can eradicate these issues, keeping everything centralised while freeing staff up to spend more time with residents, or other high priority activities. But where do you start when it comes to making the switch from print to digital? In this guide, we’ll walk through some key considerations for choosing the best food safety software for your care home.
Assessing Your Care Home’s Needs
Selecting the right software for food safety compliance begins with a comprehensive understanding of your care home’s unique operations, complexities and challenges, and future goals.
Start by thinking about the following:
Number of locations and kitchens: if you manage multiple sites or kitchens, you’ll need software that provides centralised management and real-time visibility across all locations
Team size and structure: who will require access to the care home management software? If you have a larger team, you’ll need a platform that can handle a high volume of users without slowing down, and simultaneous inputs from multiple users. It’s also a good idea to look for a solution that can scale with your team size
Types of meals and dietary needs: care homes often cater to a wide range of dietary requirements and allergies. Food safety software with built-in allergen tracking can automatically flag potential risks during menu planning and food preparation. Navitas Safety’s systems provide a full allergen management and labelling solution, so you can track every food item you produce for your residents
Next, identify any existing pain points which a digitised solution could help with. This could include:
- Time spent on manual temperature logging
- Missed checks, or incomplete records
- Inconsistent record-keeping
- Frequency of compliance documentation errors
- Difficulty tracking certain aspects of the food safety, cleaning and maintenance process
- Risk of human error in critical safety checks
- Challenges in maintaining HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) compliance
- Difficulty in providing full or up-to-date documents to during official inspections
Look for management software that not only alleviates these risks but also adapts to your care home’s unique requirements (i.e. offering customised features rather than simple, rigid, pre-designed templates).
Key Features to Look For in a Software Solution
There’s no point ‘going digital’ if the software isn’t going to streamline your current processes, and save on labour costs. Here are some key features that will help your care home to become more efficient and compliant.
Temperature monitoring
Temperature checks should be done several times a day, but they become a laborious, time-consuming task when done manually. Smart sensors installed in fridges and freezers can automatically monitor temperatures at 30-minute intervals. If anything goes wrong, the relevant team members will receive immediate alerts, preventing potential foodborne illness outbreaks.
Automated reporting
Regulatory compliance often demands detailed records. The best care home safety solutions should make generating reports as easy as the touch of a button, with customised dashboards providing at-a-glance insights into critical metrics. This allows management to address issues proactively, and is especially useful if there are multiple sites. Recurring themes across a number of settings could highlight broader issues, such as gaps in staff training.
Task management
Routine tasks are essential for maintaining gold star food safety standards, but manual tracking can lead to all sorts of issues, as we’ve covered in this blog.
Consider customised checklists for tasks such as food storage checks, kitchen cleaning routines, special diets and allergies, residents’ mini-kitchens cleaning checks, post-caring activities, and handwashing procedures. Management software will make it a breeze to incorporate these into daily operations, with completed records all stored in one place, and easily retrievable.
Internal audits – essential for maintaining and improving care standards – can also be monitored and tracked, ensuring that no detail is overlooked and helping to drive a culture of continuous improvement.
Real-time visibility
Having remote access to data is a huge time-saver for those with multiple settings to manage. It also helps to identify any non-uniformity in standards and procedures, with transparency and accountability at the heart of effective food safety management.
The reality of being a care home provider with multiple sites is that if one setting’s reputation is tarnished, it’s likely the others will be too. A single incident can have ripple effects, made even worse if it’s reported in the news (as many inspection failures, reinspections, and closures are).
Allergen and dietary tracking
Digitised solutions make it easier to manage the complex allergies and dietary requirements of care home residents. Arguably, this is one of the most important aspects of food safety, preventing potentially life-threatening allergic reactions.
Having centralised records with detailed dietary profiles reduces the risk of miscommunication or outdated records. And for those with swallowing difficulties, care homes can track and manage different puréed or soft food options, with clear labelling and preparation guidance.
Scalability
As your care home grows and evolves, your food safety software should be able to adapt. Look for a solution that can scale to accommodate additional locations, staff, residents, and features, and is up-to-date with regulatory requirements.
Ease of Use and Adoption by Staff
The success of any food safety software depends not only on its functionality but also on how easily your staff can use and embrace it. It’s important to remember that making the transition from paper-based to digital solutions can feel like a big, sudden change to employees, especially if they don’t consider themselves to be tech-savvy.
Look for an intuitive and easy to navigate user interface, requiring as few steps as possible for staff to get to the section they need. Built-in tips, prompts, and video tutorials can also be useful.
It may be helpful to give a handful of employees access first, to iron out any teething issues early on. When you’re ready to roll it out, the best way to encourage adoption among the team is to clearly communicate why the change has happened along with the specifics on what has changed. Staff should feel confident in the benefits of the digital transformation and how it streamlines their daily tasks. They should also know who to get in contact with if they have any issues with the software.
Comparing Pricing and Support Options
Cost naturally plays a part in the decision-making process. While it may be more expensive upfront (especially when compared to the cost of pen and paper), care home management software is an investment that can deliver significant returns in both the short and long term.
Food safety software providers often have different pricing models, so you need to work out what is best for you. Would you prefer to make a one-time purchase, or pay a small fee, either monthly or yearly? Some providers may even offer tiered pricing based on features or user limits, allowing costs to scale up or down depending on your specific needs. Remember: think about your future plans, and which software is likely to offer scalability.
Ongoing support is also essential, so you may wish to look for a provider that can offer round-the-clock assistance, a dedicated account manager, and various ways to get in touch (i.e. live chat, email, or phone). Live demos can also be useful to allow your team to get familiar with the interface, and to collect any feedback from the people who will be using it day-to-day.
Last but not least, don’t forget to do your due diligence. Check out the reviews and ratings of different platforms, and look for real-world examples that demonstrate how the software has benefitted care homes similar to yours.
With Navitas Safety, your care home is in safe hands. Looking to discuss your requirements? Get in touch with our friendly team and make 2025 the year your care home goes paperless.
