by Peter Elson
Meet Stapely Care’s Registered Manager Shirley Smith.
The best metaphor Shirley Smith has heard about a care home was while on her university degree course and a fellow student compared it to a “greenhouse, where residents can flourish and grow.”
Now Stapely Care’s Registered Manager, she says: “I was so impressed by this idea that I wished that I’d thought of it myself!
“In a seminar on our Health and Social Studies degree course at Liverpool University the tutor asked us to suggest a comparison for a care home. One student said it was like a library where you took a person out and put them back.
“But then another student disagreed and suggested the greenhouse comparison for residents to flourish and grow. I thought this was wonderful as a care home is not just about keeping residents warm and fed. We can do so much more.”
Shirley has been Registered Manager for 13 years, having joined as deputy in 2001 and prior to this was deputy manager at several other care homes.
“I love Stapely as much today as when I started,” she says, “back then I saw how good it was, but having got running care homes down to a fine art I could also see how to take it to a new level.
“Philip Ettinger and the other incoming trustees totally supported my aim to make Stapely more like a person’s home than a care home. We made it lighter and brighter, less formal and added activities – things you can do here which you can’t do at home.
“What made me really want to stay was Stapely’s ability to retain staff, some of whom had been here for 30 years. I thought there’s got to be something special here.”
Shirley also believes that being the only registered Jewish kosher care home in Liverpool (complete with
synagogue and kosher kitchen) gives it a unique ethos of tradition which benefits residents of all faiths.
She says: “In an ever-changing world you must cherish traditions. They need to be kept otherwise it’s a loss to a society in which everything is disposable.”
Starting her career as an EN (Enrolled Nurse) at Liverpool’s Broadgreen Hospital in 1991, she left in 1994 to take a three-year degree in order to go into management and better further her career.
“I loved being at university, but it was very scary as I was 31 years-old and everyone else was much younger. My six children were very supportive, and I was back at work two months after each birth – obviously I have fantastic parents!
“My eldest daughter Rachel was about 14 when I started university and she and her sister Amy now work at the Wirral’s Clatterbridge Hospital in administration and recruitment.
“It was nice to understand the framework of how a care home works and the human resources side of things. However, nursing is always about the person you’re caring for, but here it’s about the whole package, and also the staff.”
And you couldn’t put the ethos of Stapely more succinctly than that.
Shirley Smith CV
Born 1960
1991 Enrolled Nurse Broadgreen Hospital
1994-7 Liverpool University in Health and Social Studies
2000 Diploma Managers’ Award
2001 Joined Stapely Care as Deputy Registered Manager
2010 Stapely Care Registered Manager
Mother of six: four daughters and two boys