Customer Stories
How Thorndale Foundation achieves its vision for people with disability using Centro QMS
Thorndale Foundation (Thorndale) provides opportunity and equality for people with disability in the Nepean, Hawkesbury, and lower Blue Mountains regions of NSW. Its vision is to ensure that all people with disability live in a community where equality is a way of life.
From humble beginnings in 1959, the organisation now has over 200 participants, and is recognised in Western Sydney as a disability organisation of choice. There is a strong family feel and culture of caring, with 60% of participants from the original families that set up the foundation.
With the introduction of the NDIS quality and safeguarding framework, as well as the need to systemise quality in order to achieve its vision, Thorndale turned to Centro ASSIST for its Quality Management System (QMS).
We spoke to Thorndale’s Chief Executive Officer, Cathy Gault, to learn more about why they implemented Centro QMS and how it has helped their organisation.
Solution Requirements
With a small management team, Thorndale were looking for a QMS solution that could make quality and compliance easier to manage. The solution needed to be simple to set-up, easy to use and result in substantial time savings to allow a greater focus on participants.
In particular, the solution needed to have ready-made policies, procedures and audit content that could be adopted quickly. Thorndale were also looking for a solution to manage their incidents, complaints and improvements.
Policy & Procedure Set-up
When it came to the set-up of Thorndale’s policies and procedures, Cathy chose to utilise the pre-built content within Centro QMS, adapting it to suit their organisation. This was a great choice as the content has been written by industry experts, aligned to the NDIS Practice Standards and continually reviewed for compliance.
Cathy and the team at Thorndale are now editing and managing their policies from within Centro QMS. There was a view that creating procedures required full-time resources, however when staff were introduced to Centro QMS, they found it simple to use.
Incidents and Complaint Management
What was once a paper-based system that was kept at each house is now a streamlined, digital incident and complaint management system.
"When something is reported, I get notified. I love it because it’s immediate and the right people are made aware of the incident. It’s no longer a paper-based system that’s kept at the houses” Cathy says.
Feedback and Improvements
Thorndale also use Centro QMS to capture feedback and improvements.
Having a system to submit feedback helps spark conversations and raise questions about whether something should be done differently.
The improvements recorded in Centro QMS range from maintenance requests, to internal audit non-compliances to ideas about improving services.
“It’s great because it keeps a solid record; we can see how long it takes for things to be completed and follow up on any outstanding activities,” Cathy says.
Compliance Updates
With so many regulatory and best practice changes, it’s difficult to stay on top of what needs to be done. Cathy recounts how useful the compliance updates from Centro have been:
“When the meal management and COVID disaster planning requirements were introduced, it was wonderful to know Centro had this sorted. The linking is the best part; you could write a policy, but it would be so difficult to put in all that detail. You wouldn’t know all the different regulatory places that it comes from!”
Embedding Centro QMS into the organisation
Thorndale have now embedded Centro QMS in their daily workflows. The next focus area is onboarding. Cathy looks forward to using Centro QMS’ required reading feature to demonstrate that a policy or procedure has been read and understood.
Centro has been a great fit for Thorndale and Cathy wishes to reassure others in her position.
“Make the switch to Centro QMS,” Cathy says.
If you’re ready to discover a flexible, cloud-based QMS solution tailored to disability and aged care providers, book a demo today.