Governance
Our Services
Board and Governance
CSS consultants who have been an advisor or governing body member on aged care Boards or Leadership Teams understand the complexity and compliance requirements expected under the Aged Care Quality Standards.
The Board is responsible for the overall governance, management and strategic direction of the organisation. The Board is required to monitor the operational performance, risk and financial position of providing quality and safe care to consumers. Our consultants can aid you to achieve these requirements.
Inclusions:
- Board manual with associated policies, procedures and forms
- Gap analysis of governance systems through audit
- Survey conducted on Board preparedness, effectiveness, and maturity in their governance journey
- Workshop and development of a Strategic/Business Plan
- Development of Risk Management Plan and Register
Board Advisory and Committee Membership
Our Managing Director and Senior Consultants are on a number of Boards or have been senior members of Leadership Teams for aged care organisations. CSS consultants can either be Board members or Governance Advisor to the Board.
Inclusions
- Negotiated time at Board meetings and Board Committee meetings
- Preparation time to review Board papers
- Response to Board papers as required
- Up to five advice calls per month
- If Governance Advisor, provide report to the Board on best practice recommendations
Strategic/Business Planning – Workshops and Plan Development
All organisations need to establish a direction in order to achieve its purpose. CSS consultants will work with your Governing Body, Leadership Team and stakeholder representatives, to determine the priorities and initiatives the workforce will focus their efforts on.
Inclusions
- Survey of Leadership Team, key staff and stakeholder representatives to gather input.
- Workshop Governing Body, Leadership Team and stakeholder representatives including PowerPoint and booklet.
- Development of vision, purpose, values, priorities and initiatives at workshop.
- Development of draft Strategic/Business Plan.
- Development or key success metrics.
Board and Governance Support
Critical Success Solutions has consultants who have been either on aged care Boards or Leadership Teams and understand the complexity and compliance requirements expected under Standard 8 – Organisational Governance – Aged Care Quality Standards.
Your organisation’s board is responsible for overall governance, management and strategic direction. It is required to monitor the operational performance, risk and financial position of providing quality and safe care to consumers.
Inclusions
- Governance framework and corporate governance strategy
- Board manual with associated policies, procedures and forms
- Gap analysis of governance systems through audit
- Survey conducted on Board preparedness and maturity in their governance journey
- Workshop and development of a Strategic/Business Plan
- Development of Risk Management Plan and Register.
Business Continuity Plan Testing Workshops
Critical Success Solutions will facilitate a workshop with your Leadership Team to test your BCP through multiple scenarios (including COVID-19 outbreaks).
This workshop is tailored to your organisation to assess if it is robust enough to handle the unexpected events that could possibly arise and to assess your Leadership Team’s response.
Testing benefits
- Learn emergency preparedness planning best practice
- Ideas for business recovery
- Practical tips and tools
Inclusions
- Report prepared with recommendations for strengthening the BCP and responses
- Assess emergency response
- Test crisis management
- Identify gaps in current BCP
Business or Operational Review
Request an on-site business review of your organisation from a senior Critical Success Solutions consultant.
Our audit is conducted in line with leading business best practice frameworks and covers key business functions, including but not limited to:
- Management
- Strategy
- Risk Optimisation
- Innovation
- Budget
- Human resources
- Relationships and service agreements
- Quality
- Security
Inclusions
- A detailed and thorough report, outlining potential risk areas in a range of business functions and operation areas.
- Recommendations for improvement
- Action plan developed from the audit findings
Applications / Grants / Tenders
Critical Success Solutions maintains a team of highly skilled professional writers to draft grant applications for your retirement village, aged care or disability care organisation.
We have assisted many organisations win beds in ACAR rounds, increase funding via ACFI, win funding via government grants and become approved providers.
Our consultants will spend time with key personnel to learn about your organisation and collate all the information required.
Once your application has been drafted, your organisation will have the opportunity to review the document and provide feedback before the final application is provided for the organisation to lodge.
Inclusions
- Provision of a senior Critical Success Solutions professional content writer and a senior Critical Success Solutions consultant to quality assure all applications
- Provision of screening and pre-application assessment tools where applicable.
- Assistance and advice on how to lodge your application.
- If required, additional services negotiated to workshop/draft required documents such as Business Plan, Risk Management Plan and Register, and Organisation Chart.
Commissioning and Decommissioning of a Residential Aged Care Facility
Critical Success Solutions has consultants who have commissioned and decommissioned aged care residential facilities.
Our experts follow a project management methodology where consultation is conducted through the project phases of initiation, planning, execution, performance monitoring and close with stakeholders.
Project deliverables, milestones and checklists are developed, agreed to and implemented. A survey of stakeholders and residents helps evaluate either the commissioning or decommissioning of the service and share lessons learnt.
Inclusions
- Requirements gathering workshop.
- Project plan developed and implemented with project deliverables, milestones and checklists.
- Regular meetings with the leadership team.
- Workshops with stakeholders.
- Delivery of progress reports.
- Development and conduct of evaluation and lessons learnt survey.
- Report on evaluation and lessons learnt.
Critical Incident Investigation / Root Cause Analysis
Healthcare workers are a key risk group due to the very nature of the work they do on a daily basis.
Hazards are present in every workplace and are a threat to everyone’s health and safety. However, workers in the healthcare sector are reported as having one of the highest rates of work-related injuries and illnesses, predominantly due to their regular handling of patients.
Our experienced consultants are highly skilled in aged care risk management and in identifying the underlying causes of system failures such as near-miss, adverse events or a sentinel event.
We aim to ensure that following the investigation your organisation can implement strategies and control measures to effectively identify and prevent incidents as well as have a robust system in place to manage incidents that do occur.
Inclusions
- Critical Incident and Root Cause Analysis Education – Workbook and presentation including case studies and toolbox talk for organisational use
- Provision of Policy and Procedure, Incident and investigation forms
- Response to critical incidents within seven business days of notification
- Provide a Root Cause Analysis of the incident and a formal report that includes recommendations to consider and implement
Expert Witness
Our Managing Director has extensive experience in the aged care industry and is regularly called upon to be an expert witness due to her 30+ years of specialised knowledge of aged care in residential, respite or home care settings for legal proceedings.
Inclusions
- Working to tight deadlines with law firms to develop expert witness reports.
In a Box Policy and Procedure Suites
‘Aged Care in a Box’ is a set of policies, procedures, educational tools and audits to assist with assurance of care and services delivery in your aged care residential facility or home care service.
This collection is also available for Retirement Villages and Disability Care Services.
Each ‘Box’ is different, depending on your service. The policies and procedures shared by Critical Success Solutions use plain English, diagrams and flowcharts to provide meaningful, user-friendly documents for your staff.
Inclusions
- Policies and procedures
- Audit tools
- Handbooks
- Organisational forms and charts for:
- complaints and feedback
- contractors
- education
- emergencies
- accommodation services
- human resources
- infection prevention and control
- information systems
- personal and clinical care
- privacy
- quality management
- regulatory compliance
- volunteers
- well-being and lifestyle
- WHS.
- Currently tailored for NSW (all – residential aged, home care, retirement villages, disability) and Victoria (home care). Other states/areas can be negotiated.
TUNE – The Undercover Nurse Evaluation
The TUNE program provides undercover observation and analysis of workplace practice gathered by Critical Success Solutions professional staff.
This service may also be in the form of a Critical Success Solutions nurse, placed in the care facility to observe nursing, administration or facility staff performing their roles
Inclusions
- Briefing – confidential briefing with the Leadership Team on issues relating to care and service delivery.
- Assessment tool – assessment tool will be designed based on the brief in order to assess the areas of concern.
- Observational – work with you to ensure best time/place to observe practice and match with a Critical Success Solutions professional (e.g. nurse) to act as a consumer.
- Evaluation – a detailed report with findings and recommendations will be provided and discussed with the Leadership Team within the work week.
Responses to External Parties
Call on senior Critical Success Solutions content writers and consultants to assist you in crafting responses to important stakeholders.
Our consultants have years of experience in formulating appropriate responses to notification of sensitive situations. We take the time to address your situation with the utmost care, due diligence and respect to legislative requirements.
Inclusions
- Consultation with a senior Critical Success Solutions consultant.
- Development of a draft response.
- Completion of final response with client feedback.
Board Governance Manual
Critical Success Solutions Board Manual outlines the Corporate and Board Governance Principles and provides a Framework for the Board to perform its role. It is aligned and takes the principles from the Effective Governance – a framework for aged care which is a result of an iterative exploration of the concepts of quality, high performance and leadership in relation to aged care governance.
High performance (Boards) manifests from the behaviour and ethics of individual board members supported by board leadership and culture. A system for good governance sets the foundation of structures, expectations and activities on which high performance can be built. A system for good governance will incorporate the ‘basics’ of governance and build on them.
Therefore whilst this document does provide references to Board documents it does not prescribe every document and every step but the Process, Principles and Governance Framework which can be built upon.
Our Board Manual can be supported by CSS policy and procedure where the organisation does not have their own, if required.
Inclusions
- Introduction
- Board Governance
- Role and Responsibility of the Board
- Principles for effective board performance
- Principle 1: Roles and Responsibilities
- Principle 2: Board Composition
- Principle 3: Purpose and Strategy
- Principle 4: Risk – Recognition and Management
- Principle 5: Organisational Performance
- Principle 6: Board Effectiveness
- Principle 7: Integrity and Accountability
- Principle 8: Organisation Building
- Principle 9: Culture and Ethics
- Principle 10: Engagement
- Board and Corporate Governance Framework Elements
- Defining Board roles
- Charting Board attributes, culture, and leadership
- Formulating strategy
- Setting Policy
- Providing Accountability
- Monitoring and supervising executive functions
Our solutions are critical to your success
Contact Critical Success Solutions to discuss our tailored consulting services.
