Minster Care Group is a leading care home provider, established with the goal of reshaping the care home experience of older people in the UK. With a rapidly ageing population, they understand the urgent need for care homes with a heart.

They offer a comfortable and homely environment where service users can enjoy a good quality of life and be supported. They focus on holistic care methods to maximise their resident’s potential – physically, emotionally and spiritually.

The Challenge

During the Pandemic, infection control has been a key focus in all healthcare facilities and has highlighted to everyone how crucial it is to keep up to date with infection control procedures and improvements, as even the smallest changes can make a significant difference.
With the government infection control funding for Care Homes, Minster Care were keen use it wisely and explore changes they could implement to safeguard their staff and residents.

They had been clients of DDC Dolphin since 2005, initially purchasing and servicing their sluice room machines on an individual basis until 2017 when Minster Group invested in service contracts covering all their homes. All their sluice room machines have continued to be serviced throughout the pandemic with DDC Dolphin seamlessly working and providing the required maintenance within government restrictions.

With Public Health England establishing that COVID-19 was present in faeces and urine, Minster Care turned to DDC Dolphin for advice on how they could improve their infection control and human waste management solutions.

The Solution

With a service and maintenance agreement in place for the past 3 years we were very familiar with the Minster Care Group and their sluice rooms machines. As part of our standard procedure during a service visit, a full machine condition report is completed with the dedicated account manager receiving an update, who will then advise the client of any action that may be necessary. We were therefore able to quickly assess and highlight any dated, high risk and obsolete machines which needed replacing.

No two homes are the same, they vary in size and resident numbers, but with our extensive range of sluice room equipment and accessories we were able to assess and provide the perfect solution for each home supplying a mix of Panamatic Midi and Panamatic Maxi bedpan washers depending on the individual homes’ requirement.
In order to meet the highest infection prevention and control standards, the more suitable and cost effective solution for some of the homes was to switch from bedpan washers to DDC Dolphin’s Pulpmatic Medical Pulp Macerators. For these homes we were able to provide the latest Pulpmatic Eco+, the most environmentally friendly, economical and hygienic macerator on the market.

The Minster Care team understood the importance of infection prevention and the vital part that their sluice room equipment played in achieving the safe disposal of human waste. They continued servicing each piece of equipment throughout the pandemic and with a service contract in place the DDC Dolphin service team were confident that along with their infection control procedures all their homes would now meet the infection control standards they were striving for.