The Carer Screen acts as an information store for all the information you need relevant to your Carers and any other staff that you wish to have on the system.

As an active personnel file it is split into different sections or tabs similar to how you may divide a physical file.

Records that have been input, will appear in the list on the left hand side of the screen and can be accessed by clicking on the name of the Carer that you wish to review.

Putting a new Carer record onto the system is easy and can be done as follows:-

Start by making sure that you have the Carer Screen selected then

• Click on the “New” Action Button and the fields for the Carer record will become blank and ready to be inputted.

• Complete the details for the carer on each of the tabs within the Carer record. (A comprehensive breakdown of the tabs can be found below.

Top Tip: Fields Highlighted in Yellow are set as Mandatory Fields in the system and need to be completed as a bare minimum. These fields can be chosen by accessing the Mandatory Fields Screen in the Tools Menu at the of the screen

The General Tab contains fields that hold the most basic information such as name and address details.

Postcodes are important. It is a good idea to check the postcode by clicking on the green push pin located to the side of the Postcode field. This will then open MapPoint or GoogleMaps to show the location that the postcode refers to.

Fields such as the Transport and Manager have the option to select a response from a drop down list.

The choices of response available in the drop down list may not include your desired response. If this is the case, then you can create additional ITEMS in the drop down list by adding them within the ITEMS screen. Please refer to Page 19 for information on using the ITEMS screen.

By default the two date fields on the Other Details tabs are set as mandatory. This Start Date and End Date will be pre-populated with Today’s date in the case of the Start Date and the system default End Date of 31/12/2099.

If the current date, falls within the two dates in these fields the record will be considered Active. Changing the Start Date to a future date (for Carers who haven’t started yet) or the End Date to a date in the past (Carers who have left) will change the record to Inactive. Any date this falls within the current week will not immediately change a record’s status.

The two fields allow you set a minimum number of hours that you would like to offer a given Carer as well as setting a maximum number of hours that an individual Carer would like to work.

Using the Qualification tab allows you to record the Qualifications achieved by your Carers centrally in one place and use this information to match the skill set of Carers to the requirements of individual Clients when allocating calls.

Once in Edit mode, a new qualification record can be added by using the green plus icon, to launch the Qualification input box.

Once completed click OK and the record will be stored. Click OK again and you will confirm this new qualification for the record.

Click and select the qualification entry and use the pencil icon (or double click on the required entry) to Edit the details. Use the red cross to remove the qualification record

The Wages tab will contain a record of all previously finalised Wages sheets for the Carer. This can be used to review previous Wage-sheets or to Unfinalise them should changes be required on an individual Wage-sheet.

Within the Security tab you can store the information relating to the Carer’s CRB checks and ISA and ISA Adult First.

Top Tip: It is possible within CareFree‟s Options/Rostering and Rotas screen to restrict Carers from being allocated to single calls unless their CRB disclosure number has been entered in the Security Tab.

Here the branches and areas that a Carer will cover can be selected. Each Carer should be given a Home Company and Home Branch but by ticking/unticking any additional boxes for other available areas will make them either available or unavailable to work on calls in those areas.

The Contact Log allows recording of events to enable comprehensive reporting within your business. It creates a log that has a fixed date and time stamp which therefore means it can be used (if required) in a court of law.

Once you have saved the event log it will appear on the original log tab on the Carer screen. From there, these records can be edited, deleted, or printed. The folder icon allows access to the relevant policies and procedures for the type or category of event. Checking of any spelling within an event log can be achieved using the green tick icon.

This tab allows you to store links to documents saved elsewhere on your computer or network. Therefore allowing quick direct access to documents relating to the Carer record without leaving the Carefree environment.

Click on the green plus icon, to attach a document. This will open your file explorer and allow you to locate the document you wish to attach. Select it and then click Open. You will then be given an opportunity to name the Attachment within Carefree.

Once saved into CareFree the attachment can be opened by double clicking on it or selecting it and then using the binocular icon. This will then open the document for you to view and amend if required.

Attachments can also be renamed using the green “A” icon.

These provide space to hold additional information that your business may need to record and that Carefree does not at this time have a specific field for. Should you wish to set any Extras fields up then please contact CareFree support to discuss this.

This allows the recording of any additional information in relation to the Carer. There is a print feature for the notes should you wish to print off a hard copy for any reason.

It is possible to store the contact information for different individuals or organisations that may need to be contacted in relation to a Carer or a Client.

If you wish to add the contact details for a pre-existing contact such as a GP or Social Worker that you may have used on another record then use the to access the list of existing contacts that have been entered onto the system.

In circumstances where the Contact will be unique to the Carer or Client record, use the icon to create a new Contact record.

The Holiday Tab provides a screen containing two parts. The upper section relates to the use of a Holiday Fund to buy and sell Holiday entitlement for carers. This is now rarely used.

The lower of the two areas however is used to record holiday entitlement for a Carer.

• Select the Entitlement radio button.
• Click the EDIT action button.
• Click on the green plus icon.
• Click Save.

Clicking on OK within Edit Mode will confirm this new Holiday Entitlement.

Once the Holiday radio button has been re-selected, the year for which the entitlement was added will become visible.

Each Carer’s pay will be based in part on the information contained within this tab. Specifically the Role(pay) field will control which pay rules the individual will be subject to when calculating their pay.

As part of an ongoing process to meet requirements in relation to CQC’s desire to understand the effectiveness of Re-enablement care, this tab shows graphical data in relation to the variation in the amount of support being given to Clients.

For Carers this may provide useful performance management information.