St Luke’s Home in Mahon, Cork, has scored a hat-trick of CAP Gold Awards for its housekeeping, landing the latest accolade in March, which follows Golds from the nationally-recognised Continuous Advancement Programme (CAP) in February 2017 and March 2018. Very few organisations in the Care sector manage this achievement.

Members of the CAP programme share a passion for raising the standards of housekeeping and catering in healthcare organisations across Ireland and the UK. Along with reports of performance detailed from a rigorous inspection regime, the CAP programme provides valuable roadmaps and an Action Plan for quality and cost efficiency improvements.

In the case of the recent inspection at St Luke’s Home, the CAP assessment team praised the timeliness and effectiveness of the closure of the previous year’s CAP Action Plan. St Luke’s Home outsources its housekeeping requirements to Neylons, a proven Facilities Management organisation that has an increasingly impressive a track record of securing CAP Gold awards for its services.

In the CAP Assessment report at St Luke’s Home, Chief Assessor, Ian Jackson, made direct reference to the remarkable performance in terms of the ‘score progression’ over previous years. “To achieve the Gold level demands a performance above a specific threshold score,” he explains. “But in subsequent years, the real value we can measure is the way those scores increase, which, while still being a ‘gold-level achievement’, demonstrates a tangible improvement.”

Of additional note in the CAP assessment was the robust back-up procedures now in place at St Luke’s Home with the increasing use of IT and digital infrastructure to support the service delivery. “Even without factoring in the digital technology, this was an impressive performance by the housekeeping department,” says Jackson. “Credit is due to all involved. It’s rewarding to see the progression made and the innovation being brought to the service.”

Tony O’ Brian, CEO at St Luke’s Home, praised the positive attitude that prevails in housekeeping, saying: “We are so pleased for the team and for the home. The housekeepers really do have a ‘can do’ attitude, for which we are enormously grateful.”