The seminars will be covering current issues within the care sector and are free for visitors to attend. CPD certificates are available for seminar attendees upon completion of a Certificate Request Form which will be available at the show via QR codes that can be scanned in the seminar room.
Further speakers to be revealed soon. Stay tuned for programme updates.
2024 Programme
10.15am -11.00am: Dementia Care Excellence: Crafting Enriching Approaches for Quality Living
Explore innovative strategies and compassionate approaches in dementia care excellence. Join our panel discussion on crafting enriching methods for quality living, promoting holistic wellbeing and enhancing the lives of those affected.
Mary Bruce, Director, Dementia Educators
Natasha Wilson, Dementia Care Manager, HC-One
Professor Karen Windle, Acting Director-Centre Applied Dementia, Centre for Applied Dementia Studies
Dr Isabelle Latham, Research-in-Residence, Hallmark Care Homes
11.30am – 12.00pm: Keeping up with caretech: why you must focus on it now
Technology is now all-but essential to the successful delivery of high-quality client-centred care, while maintaining efficiency and monitoring compliance.
Further developments could help deliver more personalised care to more people, faster, and with less effort. AI can gather data used to monitor clients’ conditions and warn about risks. However, buying without in-depth research could waste money on tech that may be unnecessary, hard to operate, unsuitable or unacceptable to clients.
Amrit explains how to evaluate caretech and discusses how although technology can potentially improve care, it can never replace it. As care providers, we must ensure that it never does.
Amrit Dhaliwal, CEO, Walfinch
12.45pm – 1.30pm: Future-Ready Workforces: Balancing Retention, Wellbeing and Development
Engage in a forward-looking panel discussion exploring the intricate balance of retention, wellbeing and personal development, offering insights for cultivating adaptable and thriving teams in evolving environments.
Leah Cooke, Associate, W&P Compliance Centre
Matthew Bond, CEO, Borderless
Claire Leake FCIPD, Chief People Officer, National Care Group Limited
Heather Wehrle, Director of People and Brand, Right at Home UK
2.15pm – 2.45pm: An Update From the CQC
With the rollout of the single assessment framework almost complete; join us for an overview of the single assessment framework including the quality statements, evidence categories and how we will be scoring in the future. There will also be an opportunity to ask questions within the session.
Ann Ford, Director of Operations Network North, Care Quality Commission
Our speakers will be sharing their years of knowledge, strategies and tactics in our exciting seminars and panel sessions!
Take a look below to find out more about each of our experts and why you won’t want to miss seeing them in action.
Further speakers to be announced soon!
Amrit Dhaliwal
Amrit Dhaliwal’s Bio
Amrit Dhaliwal, 36, is the CEO of Walfinch, which specialises in providing home care services to enable people to continue living independently in their own homes.
Amrit brings together his commitment to quality, care sector skills and experience as an award-winning businessman, where he leads the parent company of the network of franchised Walfinch care offices across the UK.
After graduating from Keele University with a degree in History & Economics, Amrit realised very quickly he needed to be in business for himself. After transforming an Italian deli in Richmond in Surrey into an award winning Italian restaurant and developing and a successful tea shop, he sold both and invested the profits into several property development sites in London. At the same time, he developed a well-known domiciliary care franchise in Oxford from a standing start to £1 million turnover over six years, developing a valued core team of 70 and winning Franchisee of the Year award.
This practical experience has given Amrit clear insight on how to help each franchisee develop their business effectively and reach their goals. Walfinch’s mission is to work with each franchisee using Walfinch’s system to develop a client focused and profitable business.
Ann Ford
Ann Ford’s Bio
Ann Ford is a Registered Nurse by background and has worked in a variety of Nursing, Children’s Services and Adult Social Care settings throughout her career .
Ann has almost 40 years’ experience in Health and Social Care . Ann has worked in Regulation for over 20 years and is passionate about the positive impact effective regulation can have in improving the quality and safety of services to people using them.
Ann has held a number of Leadership roles in a range of sectors and in 2020 was awarded an MBE for her services to patient safety.
Ann is currently the Director of Operations for CQC in the North Of England responsible for the Regulation of NHS Acute trusts , NHS Mental Health Trusts , Primary Medical Services and Adult Social Care settings.
A native of Liverpool where she has lived most of her life , her interests are music, film and theatre, Ann is also an avid Liverpool football supporter.
.
Claire Leake FCIPD
Claire Leake’s Bio
Claire’s leadership has driven National Care Group (NCG) to become established as a real force in the specialist care sector. Her recruitment strategy delivered improvements in the time to onboard colleagues and welcomed more than 1,100 new colleagues to the organisation in 2022 an increase on the prior year.
Under her leadership, NCG benefits from a culture of wellbeing to support over 2,500 colleagues that work in over 250 settings. NCG was one of the first organisations to invest in mental health awareness training for managers and has recently been in the news for its pledge to reimburse the costs of HRT prescriptions amongst other menopause support initiatives including being recognised by the Sun in the top 8 menopause-friendly employers. NCGs people strategy is also focussed on embedding a culture of diversity and inclusion and creating an environment where our colleagues can reach their full potential.
Dr Isabelle Latham
Dr Isabelle Latham’s Bio
Dr Isabelle Latham is Researcher-in-Residence for Hallmark Care Homes and honorary Senior Research Fellow at the Association for Dementia Studies at the University of Worcester. She is the UK’s first researcher-in-residence within a care home organisation and supports Hallmark’s care homes to undertake dementia care research of importance to them in ways that include all members of their communities, and works to ensure research evidence is translated into practice change that positively impacts people’s day to day lives. Isabelle has 25 years’ experience in social care including as a direct care worker. She later focussed on research and education specialising in creating positive organisational cultures and effective learning for frontline staff. She is co-author of the book “Education and Training in Dementia Care: a person-centred approach published by Open University Press in March 2023.
Heather Wehrle
Heather Wehrle’s Bio
A fierce advocate for the Care sector workforce, Heather is the award-winning Director of People and Brand at Right at Home UK. She joined the business in 2016 as Training and Recruitment Manager and quickly climbed the ranks due to her commitment to professionalising the sector, creating career pathways and educating the public on the opportunities and challenges faced by care workers. She was named ‘Woman Franchise Employee of the Year’ at the EWiF (Encouraging Women into Franchising) Awards for her outstanding efforts to tackle the false perceptions of care work as ‘unskilled’ and won the Rising Star Award at the 2023 Home Care Awards, for her work shaping Right at Home’s recruitment and training offering and driving positive change in the social care sector.
Leah Cooke
Leah Cooke’s Bio
Leah Cooke is a registered nurse with over 22 years’ experience in the health and social care sector. Leah has worked in leadership roles within residential care from deputy manager through to regional operations and has experience of working with CQC as a specialist advisor, and taking on other focussed clinical roles that include care specialist and nurse development manager. Leah has been writing policies, procedures and best practice documents for the last 6 years for Residential, Care home and supported living/Learning Disability services. Her most current experience includes product development, ensuring digital solutions are fit for purpose and applicable for the Social Care Sector as well as in her consultancy capacity providing turnaround services for struggling providers as well as undertaking mock inspections and quality audits.
Mary Bruce
Mary Bruce’s Bio
Mary Bruce is an experienced nurse and dementia specialist who has been a university lecturer in dementia for over a decade. She founded Dementia Educators, a company that aims to improve the quality of life for those living with dementia and their families by educating health and social care staff and promoting awareness in the community.
Mary is passionate about transforming practices related to dementia, and she has extensive experience and a strong commitment to educating health and social care staff. She aims to make quality education accessible and equip staff with the skills, confidence, and values necessary to support those with dementia and their families. Her vision is to contribute significantly to improving dementia care practices through a holistic approach that covers every stage of the dementia journey.
Matthew Bond
Matthew Bond’s Bio
Matthew is the CEO & Co-Founder of Borderless, a UK based technology platform revolutionising hiring and sponsorship in the Healthcare sector. Our mission is to help care providers solve staffing challenges by simplifying the international hiring and sponsorship process.
Matthew co-founded Borderless together with Jonathan in December 2022, during their time on Entrepreneur First, Europe’s leading startup accelerator program. That’s when they became acutely aware of the many issues the sector had with hiring, as well as the fraught process of bringing in staff from overseas – specifically the potential for third party abuse. After learning about the extortionate costs charged to employers and candidates, they started Borderless to provide a better, more ethical solution to international hiring.
Prior to this, Matthew spent worked in California and London in the technology industry, and across various entrepreneurial endeavours!
Natasha Wilson
Natasha Wilson’s Bio
Natasha graduated from The University of Sheffield with a Master’s Degree in Dementia Studies in 2017. Since then, she has worked in a variety of sectors in numerous dementia specific roles including Dementia & Wellbeing Lead for Age UK and Dementia Training Manager for the University of Bradford. Most recently, Natasha joined HC One, the UK’s largest residential care provider as Dementia Care Manager whilst taking on a supernumerary position as Associate Lecturer in Dementia at The University of Worcester. Natasha runs a Charity called Dementia Dreammakers Sheffield which aims to facilitate life enhancing moments & experiences for people living with dementia in Sheffield.
Professor Karen Windle
Karen Windle’s Bio
Karen Windle is Professor of Applied Ageing and Dementia Research and, Acting Director of the Centre for Applied Dementia Studies at the University of Bradford. Her research and evaluation across integrated health, social and third sector care has focused on healthy ageing, dementia, encompassing prevention and early intervention, personalisation, multimorbidity, health and work, health and technology, and palliative and end-of-life care. As Principal or Co-Investigator on over 300 programmes, Karen’s findings and outcomes have had profound impact on policy and practice.