CIS Assessment Case Study

CIS Assessment 

Case Study 

KCare Nursing Agency save money and improve care quality, staff retention and relationships 

This case study describes how a combined partnership of training delivery and online assessment has brought 

enormous benefits to service users through a knowledgeable, well trained, high quality and confident workforce. 

Highlights 

• Went from one to three star CQC rating 

• Complaints have come down to zero 

• Customer satisfaction from 60-75% to 98% 

• Enables focused supervision and appraisal 

• Improved relationships between carers and 

the care coordinators 

• Saved time and money 

• Improved staff retention and satisfaction 

• Identifies the calibre of job applicants 

• Enabled the business to move forward 

About K Care Nursing Agency 

My name is Peter Mukono. I am the Director of 

KCare Nursing Agency and the Registered Manager. 

We provide permanent and temporary healthcare 

workers in the domiciliary care sector, in NHS 

hospitals, nursing homes and directly to individuals. 

We are a preferred provider for a 

number of Local Authorities in the 

South East and Wales including: 

Slough, Reading, Bracknell, West 

Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire 

and Wiltshire. 

For the last 2 years our carers 

have been trained using CIS 

Assessment and Alma Care 

Training. 

About Alma Care Training 

My name is Elizabeth Lewis. I created Alma Care Training and I deliver 

training on a variety of health and social care subjects to support 

organisations to meet national standards and to provide excellent 

care and support. I work with West Berkshire Council to deliver some 

funded training to their staff and providers and I also work direct with 

local providers. 

I manage the local provider workforce development forum supporting 

providers with their workforce development, including the use of 

online assessments. 

www.cis-assessment.co.uk Page 1



Using online assessments 

Online assessments are paramount to our business, especially our 

training. We use the assessments in several ways: 

• For all new carers, after the 4 day induction training we provide, they 

come back for supervision with a care coordinator and undergo 

assessments. This gives us factual checks to identify where there are 

gaps in their performance and measures how well they have 

understood our training. 

• We assess experienced carers when we are recruiting care 

coordinators and branch managers to identify knowledge gaps and 

how we can develop them into these roles. 

• To formalise supervision and appraisals for all staff. 

• When we recruit experienced carers, we value the knowledge they 

have already and don’t put them on the 4 day training. We first use 

the assessments to understand where they are in their learning. 

Working with Alma Care Training 

The training provided by Lizz fits our training strategy. In the 4 day 

program she delivers, she adds value by going through with carers the key 

standards required. We have had other trainers before providing the 

same training but what is different and unique about Lizz, is that we 

challenge her by bringing in carers from all over the world and she is able 

to explain and communicate in an easy to understand way, what 

healthcare is all about. 

We have seen carers with absolutely no experience in care, with more 

confidence after 4 days. They want to stay with our organisation and they 

are doing a brilliant job with service users. Lizz’s training is the 

cornerstone of our organisation and she is really committed, always going 

the extra mile. The feedback from carers is 110%. They like to be trained 

by Lizz because of her personality, communication skills and passion. The 

passion for what she does surpasses anything we have seen before. 

Without her input, we would not have the high value of service we 

provide. 




Challenges 

With any management change, there are going to be challenges. The first challenge was 

resistance. This came from some of our carers we have had for a number of years. They felt 

they still wanted to hang on to the training classroom session and there was fear of using a 

computer. Secondly, the lack of computers in our office and thirdly, time. 

We overcame all of these challenges by bringing in our carers and demonstrating how CIS 

works and we got “ah ha – we can do this”. It was wonderful seeing them go through the 

process, using computers and coming back and improving their percentage score. Working 

with the care coordinators developed and improved their relationships. 

Some Local Authorities, for example West Berkshire, offer their IT room to providers and 

because our business is 24/7, our carers come into our office during the weekend if they are 

available so we schedule specific time for the workstation to be used and that works very 

well. 

Impact on people being supported 

We have seen 100% improvement in the quality to our service users. 

We work with various Local Authorities where we have Key Performance Indicators, one of 

which measures the number of complaints we receive. I have seen the number of complaints 

come down to zero. In the past, we would have 2 complaints or concerns roughly every 3 

months. The improvement is because the workforce is competent, high on quality and very 

knowledgeable. This has helped us to grow the business and move forward with confidence 

to approach other Local Authorities to say we have the capacity, the quality and can minimise 

harm to service users. Our care managers and commissioning managers have given positive 

feedback. We do annual surveys and 98% of our service users are satisfied with the service 

we are providing. This compares to 60-75% last year which is a massive jump and this is 

down to our carers who are our ambassadors. 

From one star to none, then up to three 

We saw a shift in the quality of care which was recognised by our service 

users and our agency was downgraded by CQC from being a one star agency. 

At this point we agreed to change our strategy and improve quality. 

We invited Lizz to support us to implement additional training and introduced the online 

assessments. When we had our second inspection, we got three stars which was absolutely 

brilliant. It’s a shame they don’t have stars anymore but I hope they bring them back 

because we can demonstrate how we stand apart from other providers to say 

“we are the best at what we do” 




Outcomes 

Our training was previously based on a traditional model where we would 

have a classroom session with carers coming in and attending. We didn’t 

have factual information of their knowledge or a method of measuring this. 

Within a group you tend to find more talkative people who reckon they 

have understood. We wanted to identify the gaps and measure how we 

could develop them in terms of what they have understood in class and 

take them on a pathway moving further away from core training to further 

development of their career. 

Using CIS Assessment clearly gives care coordinators and myself a training 

matrix of all our staff showing the dates and time training was undertaken 

so we can focus the supervision and appraisal process on the gaps 

identified. If a worker is having difficulty on a certain course, they can sit 

with the care coordinator to develop them on a 1:1 pathway rather than as 

a group and we focus on the individual’s weaknesses before something 

happens, thus safeguarding the service user. The care worker has tangible 

evidence of how they have developed which gives us confidence to make a 

judgement using factual analysis of their development that can lead to 

progression and promotion. 

The assessments provide flexible learning opportunities for care workers 

at their own pace. There was more interaction with the care coordinators, 

so rather than attending another course, they became closer and working 

together hands on, we were able to judge how the care workers were 

doing and how they were putting into practice what they had learnt. 

There is absolutely no doubt that we have saved time and money using 

the assessments. We now manage to retain our workforce and have 

saved money in the cost of recruitment and advertising. Our workforce are 

staying with us longer, they are a happy workforce and they want to stay 

with our organisation. 

The assessments enable us to find out if we are recruiting the right calibre 

of person who can work with us and as you know a CV can be glossed over 

but, when you dig deeper using the assessments, you realise sometimes 

they are not as knowledgeable as they are telling us. 

The combination of online assessment and the practical classroom session 

has enabled our business to move forward benefitting the company, our 

service users and Local Authorities, so everyone is a winner. It’s a win win 

situation. 




Delivering training – Lizz’s perspective 

I have developed ‘in house’ courses that are compatible and adaptable to the needs of all care staff at differing levels. I 

believe that training should be innovative, flexible, stimulating, effective and of a high quality. I offer learning 

opportunities that are designed and delivered to enable the individual to develop evidence based knowledge and skills. 

I am committed to providing in-depth training that encourages equal opportunities and empowering delegates to 

maximise their own potential, knowledge and efficiency in the workplace, by ensuring they adopt a person-centred 

support and care approach. We aim to facilitate learners to be able to transfer their knowledge in a rapidly changing 

healthcare environment. 

Health and social care courses, where relevant, are mapped to the Common Induction Standards and where 

appropriate, meet the learning outcomes as defined in the Skills for Care knowledge sets. They can also be used as core 

knowledge for underpinning further study towards QCF Diploma in Health & Social Care. 

Peter’s final words: “Absolutely go for it” 

The benefits are immense. A confident and happy workforce with a good reputation – you can’t beat that! 

Anyone who might be thinking about using the assessments alongside other learning activities and training courses, can 

see we are evidence that it works and has met CQC requirements and essential standards. Lizz’s training and the 

online assessments gel together. There are money savings as well; budgets are tight at the moment and if there is 

anything that can save an organisation money, there is value to it. I’ve got a quality workforce, happy service users, 

happy commissioners. If you are an organisation that believes in high quality and safeguarding service users, it’s a no 

brainer. 

To contact Peter about this Case Study: 

Email: pmukono@kcarehealth.com or call: 01189 569922 

Website: www.kcarehealth.com 

To contact Lizz about this Case Study: 

Email: elizabeth@almacaretraining.co.uk or call: 07787 573957 

Website: www.almacaretraining.co.uk 

To contact CIS Assessment (part of The Grey Matter Group) 

Email: info@cis-assessment.co.uk or call: 0845 873 0373 

Visit our website: www.cis-assessment.co.uk

CIS Assessment Case Study

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