October Review 🍂 🎃 🐿

October Review

It has been a really busy month here at Solo HQ both in and out of the office, first up

on 6th October, our Operations Manager Emily completed the Rat Run – a 10km

obstacle course through the mud, water and wilds of Holme Pierrepoint, Nottingham.

She wouldn’t have her picture taken afterwards for us though!

Our Business Manager Helen also completed a very wet and cold Yorkshire Marathon

in the fantastic time of 3 hours 55 minutes, raising money for Breast Cancer Now and

The Willow Foundation.

One of our employee teams from Lincolnshire were shortlisted as finalists in the 2018

Great British Care Awards – East Midlands, in the Home Care Award category. They

were interviewed by the judging panel about their roles at length and are looking

forward to the gala awards dinner on November 8th. We’re so proud of them and

grateful for all their hard work – you’re all winners to us!

Our head office team ‘Wore it Pink’ for Breast Cancer Now, raising money for vital

research supporting the annual, national campaign.

Our whole head office team got together on the 24th of the month for our bi-annual

team meeting. Our director, Stephen came and spoke candidly about his experiences

of securing a Personal Health Budget, how this has enhanced his life in comparison to

his experience of a traditional domiciliary care provider as well as his requirements

from a Third-Party provider. We’re very grateful for the time he took to give the team

an insight into Personal Budgets and what is important from the client’s perspective.

We spent the second half of the meeting reviewing our Company values, We asked

the team to share their thoughts on how we could develop them further. This ties in to

our new approach of asking other stake holders to help define Solo’s quality standards.

Our payroll team also benefitted from in house training, run by Assistant Payroll

Manager Jenna. This month they have reviewed HMRC payroll submissions and also

tax coding, to maximise and further their existing knowledge and confidence in dealing

with enquiries.

We have a new member of the HQ team; Anna Archer joined us at the start of the

month as Client Relations Administrator within our Direct Payments Support Service,

alongside our Client Relations Manager Kellie Grover-Ryan.

We also received lots of wonderful feedback from our clients and employees, here are

some examples of the lovely things said about our team this month:

Third Party Business: “Our profoundly disabled daughter has used her new PHB to pay for

Solo Support Services to employ a new staff team who have changed her life! Solo have been

unbelievably supportive and have helped us overcome some difficult situations.”

DPSS: Our client expressed her appreciation and thanks to us for assisting with managing her 

daughter’s direct payment, she also said that we all have a lovely manner and is pleased that

she is able to phone and talk to us, we are willing to be patient and let her explain issues.

DPSS: Our client’s Social Worker had suggested he use a different Support Service. Our client

said that he would “never change as we have been very good to him and his wife over the last

couple of years and he really appreciates all of our help”.

Thank you for reading – we’re looking forward to another positive month next month.